A Certain Scientific Tachyon
by ChaosGamer
Summary: Certainly, there are many great powers within this world, esper or magician... Have you heard of this one? Enter to see the most mind boggling ability you will most likely encounter for a while. Rated T for censored language and mild violence. So far updated without fail every late Sunday, or Monday early morning.
1. Theoretical Particle of Time

Hello, and welcome to my new story.  
I'll keep this simple. The full title in 3 languages are: 어떤 과학의 타키온 - とある科学のタキオン - A Certain Scientific Tachyon - To Aru Kagaku no Tachyon  
**As for how the protagonist, Tachyon, looks like: plasmaroar()deviantart()com(slash)art(slash)Character-Drawing-2-0-462485376**  
Just replace () with actual dots and (slash) and slash. Yes I own the image.  
Any confusion over his powers? Clarify to me in review or PM and I'll clear it up in the next chapter.

* * *

A Certain Scientific Tachyon - CH 1

School District 7 - home for the school institutions, the mysterious Windowless Building, Judgement 177 Branch, and etc. Home to the most main characters within the series, a place and its residents whom you would not want to mess with. The unfortunate young fellow who was currently digging deep beneath the ground of the District 7 had no knowledge of this. He also had no idea that he was even in Japan, of all places.

He was in for a nasty surprise when he decided to dig up the surface to check our the surroundings. The earth rumbled; the surrounding area began to form cracks upon the ground as a one meter and half cubic large mining machine began to climb upward, toward a cold, hard surface. The machine itself resembled the mining pod shown within the classic Motherload flash game, with diamond bit drill, titanium hull, V16 turbo engine, Quad-turbine radiator, and various other electronics and equipment that would make any other miner or engineer drool with envy.

The round glass top casing, tinted dark, opened up to reveal a young man with a dark brown hair, navy blue jacket. He immediately began to tut impatiently at the GPS.  
"I was under the impression that I was at Beijing." he grumbled. "I probably should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque." he tapped at the screen of the device, shaking it. "The materials within underground seems to have thrown the satellite calculations way off."

He look up - he was surrounded by the ghetto-ish buildings, a strip of them at each side, with the sky being covered by the blankets stretching from one row of the buildings to the next.

"Where am I anyhow? And who goes through all this trouble to cover the sky up?" He squinted. "For rain? Those blankets doesn't look too waterproof. Unless..."

The GPS was currently haywire, unable to exactly dictate the position it was currently within. Judging by the smashed up surveillance cameras, he surmised that he was within criminal part of the city. The tarps were most likely there to obfuscate satellite surveillance and interaction, which would explain the faulty directions.  
This was pretty inconvenient, considering that fact that he was in middle of actual run from hostile parties. He currently was in an area where it could be infested with mages, determined to have his head at all costs.  
He began to check out the machine, looking for damages. Perceiving the narrow strip of road between two columns of houses, the teenager began to prepare sleep mode for the mining pod; as no one seems to have noticed that fact that he dug up from the ground, he decided to place the pod within the earth and smooth over the surface for the time being. He would retrieve at later when he would be able to. For right now, dragging around a heavy machinery did no favor to keep him undercover. Being satisfied with its temporary shelter, he decided to figure out where he exactly was before picking his next course of action. He walked past the boundary of the run-down part of the city, and quickly discovered the mass of buildings that inhabited this place. People moved about in their daily activities full of livelihood.

Judging by the verbal voices and street signs, he was apparently in Japan... Which meant that he was drilling under the ocean... Which he should have noticed. He still was yet to figure out all the tricks and mechanics of his machine. Becoming increasingly famished by his lack of meal for most of the day, he began to head toward one of the nearby restaurants with the logo "Joseph's" written on top.

* * *

"Welcome!"

The handsome waitress lead him to an empty table. Placing a water and a menu on the table, he picked up his notepad.

"What would you like?"

"I think I'll have some Suzette. Could you please make that crepe?"

"A Crepe... Suzette..."

"Arigatou."

Collecting his menu the waitress left the table.

Using his phone he began to analyze the area he was in. Called School District 7, it was part of the famous Academy City, center of power research facility.

"Doesn't look too futuristic. They said the technology of this place exceeded 20 years above everybody else." He looked around. "At least add some flying cars or something... Maybe a touch of 3D realistic movie advertisements physically popping off the billboard. Couple of Godzilla's. This is beneath my expectation." He sighed.

A piece of index card appeared with small but bright flash of light, placed neatly upon the desk. It had a single sentence written upon it.

* * *

_Help the nun outside the window._

* * *

A message from him-from-the-future! That didn't happen often. As the index card began to disintegrate into theoretical particles, He began to examine the outside of the restaurant window. There was a nun outside, as the note foretold. Lying upon the bench, looking pitiful as much as possible.  
Getting up and strolling outside, he entered the streets and walked near the bench. He gently prodded the nun gingerly.

"Touma... So... So hungry..."

"Oi."

Lifting her head up, the nun saw a teenager standing over her, her savior, the one who will give her food.  
"Food..." she whispered.

* * *

For a petite, skinny girl, she ate more than a sumo wrestler. He already counted the amount of dishes on the table; she was eating at the estimated pace of 1 full course meal per 10 minutes.

"Youmf see," she talked while eating food simultaneously. "Touma lefmpt me allmph allonp whilif chasingmph anothrmph magifician."  
"I see." Tachyon replied pensively, while not managing to understand a single word she said. The rolled up receipts at the side of the table grew and grew over time.

"Ah, now that was nice!" she wiped her mouth with a tissue after drinking some water. "Thanks. I was starving the whole day!"

"Ah, well you know." He leaned back. "Always here to help..."

"My name is Index!" The white nun introduced herself with energy. "Nice to meet you!"

Index. That was a name frequently discussed within the avid, deep insiders of the churches. Famous in the world of magic side, apparently. What was it again?

"Index Librorum Prohibitorum..." He muttered.

"Hey, that's my full name!" she smiled in delight. "How did you know?"

"The one with 103,000 grimoires."

"That's me!" Index beamed, but right after suspicion arose on her face. "Hey, you are not a magician, right?"

"Nope. A regular esper."

"Ah, that's good." she smiled. "I would be in a lot of trouble if I was sitting here talking to someone who would want to take advantage of me."

A manga-esque sweatdrop formed on the back of his head. "Maybe you put too much trust into my words? I could be lying for all you know."

"You don't have that kind of overall aura of a magician." she replied with conviction.

"Probably not." he lightly replied. "Since I can't use magic."

"Its a bit surprising to see an esper know so much about magic." Index looked at Tachyon thoughtfully. "What's your name?"

He grinned. "Tachyon. Just call me Tachyon. Time manipulator at your service."

"Tachyon...?" she mouthed his name on her tongue.

"Yep. Which reminds me." He took out a piece of index card out from his jacket. Taking out a mechanical pencil, he scribbled a sentence onto the paper.

* * *

_Help the nun outside the window._

* * *

Placing the note upon the table, he closed his eyes, and concentrated deeply.

Slowly over time, atom by atom, the molecules of the index card was converted into tachyon particles and disappeared, traveling slowly off the piece of paper with a faint, bluish glow.

Index gaped at the spectacle while clapping softly. "Sugoi! That was amazing! What did you do?"

"I just told myself to help you." he replied rather smugly.

Index frowned. "Huh?"

"You see, the reason why I noticed you outside the window in the first place was because of the note sent by me to me. Sent by me right now, which would be me-from-the-future in my point of view 20 minutes ago. Right now I have the send the same message, word for word, back to me-from-the-past, in my point of view right now, in order to avoid a temporal collapse."

Index tilted her head sideways. "Wait, so..."

"Basically I told myself to help you 20 minutes ago."

"But that's impossible..."

"So is magic, as people believe." he raised his hands slightly as he slightly shrugged, grinning ear to ear. "Yet here we are. Tell me, Index, is there anything within your 103,000 grimoirs that teach people how to travel through time?"

"I can't tell you much of the details, but I can say that it is strictly regulated by authorities in the magic side and extremely hard to initiate and control."

"Well, there you go." he smiled. Than afterward, his gaze dropped down to the ground with a grimace. "The only hope for South Korea to be at same completing level as the rest of the world... myself."

"Can you communicate to the future with it?" she asked.

"The theory I am currently toying with is that manipulating with the future is exponentially harder compared to manipulating with the past." Tachyon replied. "Each time I imbue tachyon onto object to transport them it takes great amounts of energy, even for 20 minutes. I have not yet attempted communication with the future in fear that one, it may cause a time paradox that I cannot control or remove, and two, I may not possess enough energy or knowledge to do it. This is not a power I can just use willy nilly."

_Which means, there was a significant reason as to why I told myself to help this nun._ Tachyon surmised, as he leaned back on his chair, his arms folded.

Everybody in the restaurant immediately began to shield their eyes because of the light literally illuminating from Index. Sparkles came off of Index's starry eyes as she began to imagine all the possibilities of Tachyon's powers.  
"Oi, oi," he muttered while averting his gaze and shielding with his hand. "You are getting too impressed..."

"Ah!" Index said, breaking off her reverie. "I see her! HEY! Tanpatsu!" She waved to someone behind Tachyon.

"The name is Misaka Mikoto." the newcomer grumbled in reply. "At least have appreciate the name of the person who bought you food, baka!"

Misaka glanced over at the teenager sitting on the table alongside Index. "Ah..." Misaka purred, with a sly look on her eyes. "Ditching that idiot for another man already?"

"Not true!" Index replied, looking indignant at the accusation. "He just happened to walk by me starving and he helped me regain my strength, that's all!" She crossed her arms, huffing.

"My, my... what could he think?" Misaka smiled.

"Touma wouldn't care, he only cares for my well being." she stuck out her tongue at Misaka.

"Well, whatever." Misaka glanced at the clock on the wall. "My friends are supposed to be here right now."

"Oh, Tanpatsu," Index continued. "Meet my new friend! His name is Tachyon! He can do this really cool thing-"

One sharp look of warning from Tachyon made her stop in the middle of her sentence.

"-Um, he can do cool things, like, uh..."

"Play harmonica." he interrupted.

"Yes, play harmonica." Index beamed. "He plays it very well!"

"I see." Misaka raised her eyebrows. "Nice to meet you."

"Same." Tachyon replied. He did not need introduction with her - Misaka Mikoto, number 3 in terms of research importance in Academy City. In his methodically thorough research on all great powers within the world, she was on the A list.

"Well, I think I will wait here until they come-"

**"ONEE-SAMA~!"** a voice rang out across the restaurant.

"There she is..." Misaka sighed.

"My my! Onee-sama!" A girl with her hair tied into twin pigtails with red ribbons flounced to her idol. "What are you doing here, conversing with these peasants! See, that shank has already found another man!"

Tachyon observed the veins were popping off of Index's head from these accusations.  
"An elementary grader ojou-sama calling her seniors peasants." Tachyon commented. "What has the world come to? Where did all the "respect the elder" tradition in the east go?"

"Excuse me?" the girl replied with an angry tone, although bystanders might have been amused at her change in voice and tone. "As you can_clearly_ see with this uniform, I am in middle school! Further more, I am simply just caring about your well being! If Onee-sama were to be upset, your life span will shorten dramatically."

"Heh." Tachyon chuckled. "Want to take up on that bet? I can deal with the likes of you with two hands behind my back."

"Now that's inexcusable!" She began to sputter with – rather mock – indignation. "Rash, commoners like you won't be able to deal with Tokiwadai's Railgun! Come, onee-sama." the girl began pushing her older friend out from the vicinity. "We must be going~!"

"Wait, Kuroko! Kuroko!"

"Ikuzo! Places to go, people to see."

"Kuroko!" The volume of their arguments decreased as they slowly departed from the scene.

"Well, I must be going also." Tachyon rose from his seat. "It was nice meeting you, Index."

"Eh? Going already?" Index looked up. "Well, I have to go looking for Touma, I suppose."

"Catch you later." Leaving the cash upon the table, he walked off. He needed to decide what to do in this current situation.

The first thing he would do in this situation was to go back and dig out his driller. Perhaps go toward the right direction this time around. But, as he was trapped within that thing for twelve hours, going back inside that machine was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment. The inside of the machine was really cramped, and he wished to stick to steady ground for a while.

* * *

So there he was at the moment, several hours later, wondering about within the city aimlessly. He had nothing to do, nowhere to go to at the present moment. He had no plans, and he was bored out of his mind. He wished for something to happen, something just for him to be preoccupied about. An attack from his ol' enemies he would welcome right now.  
Right around the corner, the sounds of punches and kicks occurred. A street rumble! Tachyon became intrigued at the noise as he walked around the corner to check out the situation.

A young student with grayish brown hair with glasses was getting his ever loving life beaten out from him by couple of men. Deciding that this situation was not right nor just, Tachyon temporally donned his white knight helmet (metaphorically), and began to approach the men in an attempt to neutralize the situation.  
"Halt, you savages!" Tachyon interrupted them, mustering up his best Swedish accent while laughing his ass off in the inside at his own silly antics. "What sort of ruffians would be accosting someone at the broad daylight? Stand and deliver!"

"Stay out of this loser." One of the lean thugs grunted in reply. "You'd better get out of here before we start beating you up too. In fact-"

"Very well, than. Draw steel, you blackguard!" In one swift movement Tachyon was now holding a silver gun toward their faces.

Several long minutes passed in standby, as Tachyon fiercely glared (while concentrating very _deeply _not to laugh out loud with glee) with pistol within his hand. After few tense moments, the thugs decided that their victim was not worth their trouble - they quickly sprinted away from the scene.  
Well, that may perhaps have been an overkill. The entire street was abandoned by people who panicked after seeing a gun. He really got carried away from time to time, and he was unable to control himself... Oh well.

"Hey, you all right?" Tachyon stretched out to reach the wounded student on the ground. The said student slapped his hands away in anger.

"Why didn't you come sooner?" The student hissed, and he began walking away.

"...Huh." Tachyon muttered while observing the retreating figure, half-regretting his earlier actions. Grimacing lightly, Tachyon walked away from the scene, until he was interrupted.

"Judgement desu no!" said a deep, nasally yet mature voice behind Tachyon. He turned around to see the girl who was called Shirai, standing while tugging her armband with Judgement symbol.

"I have heard first hand accounts of firearm display in this area - its you!" Kuroko's eyes narrowed in anger. "The one with Onee-sama back than!"

"Me." Tachyon calmly replied. "Ah, you are that elementary schooler. Or middle schooler. Hard to keep track." he grinned mockingly.

Veins popped on her forehead. "Firearms are deemed illegal in Academy City. You will be-"

"But it's not a firearm." Tachyon interrupted her. "Watch." Taking the gun out, he aimed it toward the ground and fired.

Shirai automatically teleported out of instinct several meters away - a small, white plastic ball shot out, spiking the ground and bounced around harmlessly. "Totally not deadly. Used by kids. In South Korea, at any rate."

Kuroko was not impressed. "As I said, firearms are deemed illegal. Please come with me."

"Oh?" Tachyon shrugged his arms. "And why should I?"

"If you don't, I will have to take you in by force."

"But I'm unconsenting." Tachyon replied. "And you do realize what kind of image you will get when you force your way to someone who is unconsenting." He smiled languidly.

Kuroko sighed. She would have to resort to force at this rate. She reached behind her skirt toward her metal spikes stored in her black straps on her legs.

Seeing her reach toward her thighs suddenly made Tachyon slightly nervous. He hoped that she did realize that he was only joking, and he seriously hoped that she was not about to take her skirt off in front of him.  
The next thing he knew, he was pinned down with short, metal spikes, outlining his body, puncturing through his clothing into the ground. Stunned, he gazed up at Kuroko who was suddenly up right next to him.

"You will now come with me to-" She was interrupted once more by a metallic whirring sound behind her. She turned around to see Tachyon, impossibly, standing behind her.

"Now look what you've done." Tachyon said in a humorous tone, while examining his shirt. "You poked holes in my clothes! And they were custom tailored!" Tachyon grinned. "Shame."

"Wha-, But..." Kuroko turned back to check to see if he was still pinned down to the ground, which, amazingly, he still was.

"You know, the shirt alone cost 100000 won." said Tachyon (the one the ground) calmly. "Opps, gotta jump!" And the next moment, he disappeared with the exact same metallic whirr Kuroko heard moments before. Light, bluish glowing particles remained behind, floating briefly before vanishing also.  
Kuroko quickly turned around. This was no time to be distracted - she reached for her metal spikes once more – she needed to act quickly-

The next moment, she was sucker punched in the stomach, air squeezed out from her lungs. She collapsed on the ground, attempting to breathe some air. He was right next to her, his fist outstretched.

"By the way." Tachyon said offhandedly as he walked off. "I am not a copy cat, illusionist, or even a teleporter." He smiled. "Try to work that one out."

And he was gone.

* * *

Thank you for reading! Please review. I am aiming for an update every week. Catch... You... Later...  
Oct(Sept)/17/2014 - Made some minor edits, including pronoun fixes, with some additional dialogue added.  
Oct/11/14: Okie, when I said Oct 17, I must have meant Sept 27 or something... QQ.


	2. The Wrath of the Number 3

(In response to a review) Nah, I am Korean-English Bilingual. I just pick up little Japanese from anime watching. I would say that listening is 80% of learning a language.

**By the way, if any of you guys are interested in how the "metallic whir" that occurs while Tachyon is traveling sounds like, its pretty similar to the repulsor sound effect from iron man: youtube()com(slash)watch?v=LoELVXr1Kuk**

**As for how to sword looks like (introduced during the chapter), here you go:**

**plasmaroar()deviantart()com(slash)art(slash)Tachyon-Saber-479467234**

Just replace () with dots and (slash) with normal slash. Enjoy reading!

* * *

Today's events were, to put it in a way, disturbing, Kuroko reflected.

It was nighttime; Onee-sama should be currently sleeping peacefully within her bed... But she wasn't. Kuroko was quite worried about her, as she frequently went outside at night, doing something, something she didn't know about.

That bothered her bit too much. Shuddering, she really tried not to contemplate on the possibility of her Oneesama spending too much time with a boy.  
On the other hand, she had something else to concentrate upon.

During her years of working for the Judgement, she had rarely met criminals and unruly citizens who bested her in battle. Sure, she had her difficulties, but she managed to defeat most of them through sheer effort, will, and intelligence. Teleportation was a versatile power. Even in Academy City there were only handful of people whom she considered more powerful than her.

But him- he took advantage of her lack of intel on his powers and completely overwhelmed her. And he walked away, just like that. What was his name again? Tachyon...

Switching her tabs, she began to do a web search on the word "Tachyon". Millions of hits came up with various results. Some from company websites, some from information networks, and etc, with various different sources. She clicked on the first link that came up.

* * *

_...Tachyon is a hypothetic particle that will always travel faster than light, with an imaginary mass..._

_...In the paper that coined the term "tachyon", Gerald Feinberg studied Lorentz invariant quantum fields with imaginary mass.[1] Because the group velocity for such a field is superluminal, naively it appears that its excitations propagate faster than light. However, it was quickly understood that the superluminal group velocity does not correspond to the speed of propagation of any localized excitation (like a particle). Instead, the negative mass represents an instability to tachyon condensation, and all excitations of the field propagate subluminally and are consistent with causality.[5] Despite having no faster-than-light propagation, such fields are referred to simply as "tachyons" in many sources.[3][6][23][24][25][26]..._

_...One curious effect is that, unlike ordinary particles, the speed of a tachyon increases as its energy decreases. In particular, E approaches zero when v approaches infinity. (For ordinary bradyonic matter, E increases with increasing speed, becoming arbitrarily large as v approaches c, the speed of light). Therefore, just as bradyons are forbidden to break the light-speed barrier, so too are tachyons forbidden from slowing down to below c, because infinite energy is required to reach the barrier from either above or below..._

_...Because a tachyon would always move faster than light, it would not be possible to see it approaching. After a tachyon has passed nearby, we would be able to see two images of it, appearing and departing in opposite directions. The black line is the shock wave of Cherenkov radiation, shown only in one moment of time. This double image effect is most prominent for an observer located directly in the path of a superluminal object (in this example a sphere, shown in grey). The right hand bluish shape is the image formed by the blue-doppler shifted light arriving at the observer..._

* * *

To most people all this information would go right over their heads, but Kuroko was currently attending one of more prestigious schools within Academy City, Tokiwadai Middle School, a school that was meant to create world leading talents and thus dealt with a very advanced curriculum. She had experiences with theoretical particles before.

But the information given did not support the actual physical fight that had occurred. The surveillance camera recording she retrieved from the Judgement records gave her no additional clue. All she saw was the exact same repeat of what transpired: Him, impossibly appearing behind her while his doppelganger still being pinned to the ground.

His name found no results within Judgement Records. Facial recognition feature did not recognize him. Perhaps it was because the Judgement records had few holes here and there (not having the highest security clearance), but even so that made things more mysterious... Watching the fight she had with him in infinite loop did not help matters. It didn't depress her much, but it sure didn't make her happy either.

She needed to figure out his secret, something that she could use to neutralize him the next time they met. Kuroko pondered while burying her face within her arms over her desk. Who was he? Where did he come from?

* * *

...Well.

It had appeared that someone had stolen his mining pod.  
Tachyon was currently kneeling in front of a large hole on the ground, previously used to secretly store his mining machine. Now, of course, it was empty.

Standing up, Tachyon scratched his head, extremely annoyed at this event.  
_I swear, whoever took my freaking mining pod..._

Well, there was not much he could do at the present moment. He was basically an illegal alien waiting to be found, as he entered Academy City in improper way. Tachyon grinned for a brief second. That Judgement girl would have a field day with that information...  
Tachyon looked upwards, taking a good look at the night sky. It was nighttime, yet the stars were entirely blocked out by the city lights. Shame, really. He enjoyed a good star gazing. All that aside, he really needed to find a place to rest. Now that his temporary shelter was stolen, he had nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep.

"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Tachyon muttered humorously. He supposed that he could rent out a hotel room; that would have been better than sleeping within a cramped pod, at any rate. On the other hand he needed to keep a careful watch on how he spent his wealth. The amount of cash was not the issue, but if he needed to spend more than the physical asset he had on himself, he needed to use ATM machines, and that would lead to his discovery. And, there still was the question of whether hotel rooms required identity verification. What should he do than?

At his wit's end, Tachyon sat down at the ground, contemplating his next course of action.

* * *

The door to the dormitory opened, as Misaka Mikoto entered her room, clothed in her unusual civilian attire. Taking her cap off, she sat on her bed, taking her rubber band off of hair. She reflected upon the recent events.  
Actively attacking and destroying the laboratories responsible for the Project Sisters was, in a way, satisfying. She felt that she at least had some sense of control over the situation – every laboratory destroyed, the weight within her heart grew less...

She looked up to see Kuroko slumped over her desk, her face buried within her arms, and felt a slight twinge of guilt. Kuroko would have no idea whatsoever of her roommate's reoccurring disappearance, and probably continued to wait until she returned, worried sick. Her computer's monitor screen was not yet within sleep mode, suggesting that she only began to doze off minutes before she arrived. There was something playing on the screen of the computer, placed on infinite loop. Curious, she closely examined the screen, careful not to disturb Kuroko.

It was a video of a teen, knocking Kuroko onto the ground by slamming his fist into her stomach, and walking away, in continuous loop.

Her first reaction was a simple shock, replaced by anger within seconds. Misaka began to carefully examine Kuroko's current state, and finding no visible injuries on her body, was slightly relieved.

Slightly.

Anger still flared up within her heart at the thought of her friend being harmed. Changing into her school attire, she began to walk out her dormitory door once more.

No one messed with her kouhai.

* * *

Footsteps echoed along in the A Certain Iron Railway Bridge; Tachyon was walking alone, hands in pockets, silently enjoying the night and the smoky, cold air within the atmosphere.

He wasn't sleepy at the moment. He had slept while he was within his pod, while placing the machine in auto-pilot. Foolish move, he'd admit, but he needed rest, and there was not like any other mining pods he could possibly collide with.

The city looked... Peaceful. Calming. At least in the night, with surroundings illuminated by streetlamps placed upon the road. Water underneath the bridge shimmering.

At that moment the lights along the road began to flicker. Tiny statics of electricity began to crackle from the ground.

Becoming increasingly wary, he turned around, trying to determine the source of this disturbance. Then he saw a girl, standing about dozen yards away from him on the bridge. Tachyon's eyes widened as he recognized her as Misaka Mikoto; and she was outstretching her arm in his direction. Than did he finally realize what she was doing.

_Holy Sh-_

The coin within her hand began to shoot toward Tachyon at three times the speed of sound. He had no time to dodge – time slowed down – he placed his fist against the railgun and screamed.

"타키온 방패!"

The projectile collided with his hand; waves after waves of bluish light began to pulsate from his fist, forming a wall in front of Tachyon, as he attempted to halt the coin in its track. Tachyon particles bean to rotate in circular motion in front of his fist, exceeding the speed of light and achieving photon boom, displaying colorful hues of blue. Collectively they formed a wall right on front of his fist, resisting the power of railgun.

The area in front of Tachyon exploded, as they both canceled each others attacks. He was flung out from the explosion, landing on the ground some distance away. The floor of the bridge in front of him turned into rubble of asphalt, smoking. Tachyon temporarily began to gasp for breath as all oxygen within the area was consumed from the explosion. Kneeling on the ground, he gathered his thoughts.

"Damn..." Tachyon smiled. "This is fun."

This, now this was what he was chasing for all his life – thrill of fighting, the thrill of struggle. His heart began to beat faster, as adrenaline pumped into his veins, cold sweat ran down on his body; Tachyon gratefully savored this moment. He absolutely loved this. Dear God, he could do this all day.

The Electromaster, however, appeared to be very pissed. Looking up, Tachyon carefully observed the actions of his opponent, who immediately began to use another form of her ability.

Giving herself a running start, she stretched one of her arms toward the ceiling rails of the bridge, as a thin strand of electricity sprang from her hands. Using the strands as ropes, she continuously swung from one place to another, connecting with the ceiling of the bridge constantly; almost like Spider-Man.

Tachyon stood in awe as he watched her swing over the collection of rubble created by their attacks. Landing several yards in front of him, she collected the molecules of iron sand in the air to to form a sword. Particles along the edge of the blade vibrated, acting as a chainsaw. She sprinted toward him.

Smiling, Tachyon began to collect tachyonic particles within his palm, containing and restricting the moving space into a shape of the sword. A weapon that shone in neon blue.

"타키온 사베르!"

The tachyonsaber was formed, gripped in his hand. At that moment, blood began to rush into his head, and at that moment he would have taken the all the espers within the Academy City head on. He began to charge toward his opponent.

Fantastic sword play to end all sword play occurred, as each party began to use all their weapon movements full out. The two blades clashed as screeching sounds rang out across the river and the bridge. His heart beat as if it would burst from his chest, not because of fear – he had no shade of it – but because of his zeal and excitement. He fought like an enraged tiger, sidestepping multiple times and attacking on all sides, drawing his skills from his teachings at Kumdo classes.

Small slits began to form on both opponent's unprotected hands, forming tiny trickles of blood that ran down to the ground. But still, his grip on the sword never weakened, as he concentrated on his iron will.

* * *

The person she was facing in battle was not as much of a pushover as she expected. The skill and momentum he was capable of matching made her wonder if he was one of the seven level 5s of the city.

He had one advantage over her in this circumstance – she was tired from her previous activity of running around during the night, destroying laboratories responsible for the creations of her clones. Him, on the other hand was still pumped up from his adrenaline. Her speed in swordfight grew less, as he slowly began to gain advantage over time.

She changed her tactic – She made a thrust toward him, which latter parried. In one fluid moment she threw her sword aside. Taking advantage of his confusion she thew a spear of light from her forehead to his direction. He instinctively parried that attack also, but it was a move she was expecting. Right after she launched her spear she thrust out her hand, painfully poking him on the shoulder.

Her finger acted as a probe of a stun gun, as she discharged a high-voltage, low-current electrical current in his body. This attack was potent, as she administered electric shock aimed at disrupting superficial muscle functions. The victim would fall down, their nerves shot, rendered immobile.

The sword dematerialized. Tachyon collapsed on the ground, momentarily stunned.

Slightly out of breath, Misaka Mikoto approached Tachyon in a threatening manner. Tachyon simply crossed his arms in one resigned motion.

* * *

"Why did you attack my friend?" She began her interrogation.

"Me? Attack your friend?" Tachyon replied. "She attacked me first! That was just self defense."

"I clearly saw you punching her in the stomach, hard." Misaka angrily spoke.

Saw? Tachyon wondered. "Saw" meant that she physically saw him retaliate against Shirai. Which either meant that she watched them from afar or from a surveillance camera, or in some other way.  
"Did you see the full encounter, or just a repeat of a single action?" Tachyon asked.

Misaka was momentarily halted by his question. How he knew, or came to that conclusion that she saw him from the surveillance camera so fast, she did not know. She would have to watch the entire video once she was back.

"Self defense or not, you hurt my friend." Misaka continued. "Nobody hurts my friends."

Tachyon, admittedly, was momentarily touched by the noble intentions of his opponent. Sighing, he moved his hands into his pockets.  
"Hey," Misaka said as she narrowed her eyes. "How are you moving your arms? You should be stunned."

"Why are you wearing boxers?" Tachyon shot back.

Short silence ensued. Misaka's face began to glow warm as she was stunned by his question. With a small scream she stepped back, once she realized that Tachyon was taking advantage of his position to look up into her skirt.

"You... YOU HENTAI!" She screamed at him.

"Oi, what do you expect from a teenager with hormonal issues like me?" Tachyon replied. "You are the one who knocked me to the ground, and you are the one who decided to walk up right next to me."

Furious, a small arc of electricity shot out from her toward him. Quickly flipping back up without relying on his hands, Tachyon leapt out of the way as the electricity bounced along the ground. "Okay, okay, calm down." Tachyon attempted to neutralize the situation. "As for your question, stun guns don't work on me."

"Impossible." Misaka narrowed her eyes. "It should work on all people. And besides, if it didn't work, why didn't you get up the moment you fell?"

"Well, for one thing its a free break." Tachyon cradled his bloodied hands. "For another, you look dog-tired. Did you sleep at all during last 24 hours?"

She didn't.

Standing up, he began to brush himself off. "I bore no ill intention against your friend. I know that you are mad, but you have to listen to me." She radiated a lot of emotions during this fight, not just anger. Something big was in her mind, something that kept her up at night. He had seen that face before. Face of a youth, who saw too much of what evil world was capable of. Just what was going on in her life?

"Alright." Tachyon said, while placing his hands inside his pocket. "I know you are pissed off at me, and rightly so. And you probably have lots of other emotions from whatever you are going through right now."

Her face hardened at his words. "None of your business." She hissed. This guy was getting annoyingly perceptive.

"So, I'm going to let you vent all that on me in one strike." He genuinely meant it. Besides, she probably needed this. "I promise not to block anything you are going to throw at me. Hit me with the lightening, or whatever. Go ahead. Consider it a payment for me retaliating against your friend."

Sudden determination burst into Misaka after a moment of hesitation. Tachyon slightly faltered in his confidence, somewhat beginning to regret his words.

Then, everything went black.


	3. Tremor in Academy City

Tachyon has TARDIS sound as his ringtone. :D

* * *

Voices around his head faintly pierced through his slumber. He felt the hardness of the surface he was laying upon, and the room itself had an odd odor. A sweet smell, but unfamiliar nonetheless. He kept his eyes closed, and intently listened.

"He looks exactly like the photo on the website! I can't believe it!"

"He is sleeping far too long. What if he is comatose?"

"If he indeed is comatose, let him stay that way."

"Shirai-san! That's too cruel!"

"He probably won't be in comatose, I didn't attack him _that_ hard..." An uncertain voice joined the conversation.

"I hope he isn't! I have so many questions to ask him!"

"Well, this is surprising." Tachyon's sudden words halted the entire conversation. "I get knocked out, and than I hear four girls around me. Is this heaven?"

Then he felt a sharp slap to his face. Tachyon snapped his eyes open.

"Alright, which one of you- oh, I see." Shirai had a smile upon her face. "That's for punching me in the stomach." she said.

"...You are still paying me for my jacket." Tachyon offhandedly replied. He looked around. "Where am I?"

"This is my home." A girl with a flower on her head spoke. "To be exact, an apartment."

"-As opposed to sending me to the hospital?" Tachyon replied in confused tone.

"You are an illegal immigrant." Shirai said in matter-of-fact tone. "Getting you to hospital would only result in you being immediately deported afterward."

Well, she wasn't wrong. Although as to how exactly she found that out he didn't know.

"Do you feel alright?" The girl with the long hair asked.

"Aside from the head splitting headache, no."

"I did warn you." Shirai spoke in smug tone. "Angering Oneesama will only serve to shorten your life span."

"Oh please." Tachyon scoffed. "I only got injured because I let her. I didn't actually expect Miss Walking Power Plant here to actually hit me with lightening." He ignored the sputter of protest from Misaka for his nickname for her.

"Lying even after a definite defeat! I clear sign of a-"

"Actually Kuroko," Misaka interrupted. "He did actually give me a chance to attack openly."

"Really oneesama?" Shirai still showed doubt on her face. "Why did he do that?"

"It's a repayment for me punching you in the gut. Now, how long was I asleep?"

"About 10 hours. Its early morning now." The girl with flower on her head replied.

"10 hours. Huh." Grunting, he lifted himself from the floor. It was morning; lights came from the window outside.

"Now that you are awake," The girl with the long hair said. "I really, really need to know – are you the Prince of Time?"

What.

No, seriously, what? Prince of Time? Who the heck came up with that weird and tacky nickname?

"Prince of Time?" Tachyon wrinkled his nose. "Never heard of it."

"But your face matches!" she was on the roll. "On the South Korean Urban Legend Website, there is a rumor where an esper with ability to control time is living there, being considered one of the top prized materials for the power researchers!"

Prized material? What was he, a rare gemstone or something? He was a human being for goodness sake.

"Don't be ridiculous Saten." Shirai spoke. "Only Academy City is capable of developing espers."

"Saten-san," The girl with the flower on her head said. "You browse South Korean urban legends?"

"The language translation by machine in Academy city is 90% accurate, able to pick out and translate even specific idioms." Saten beamed at the flowerhead. "I browse South Korean urban legends, Japan legends, American legends, all sorts of stuff!"

"...You have way too much free time." Shirai sweatdropped.

"There is a picture of your face on one of the Urban Legend websites! Including list of rumors surrounding you and your powers!"

Tachyon began to silently curse the annoying paparazzi in his past.

"So, is it true that you can control time?" The girl excitedly asked.

"...Control time? No." Tachyon flatly replied. "Nothing can control time. I can however manipulate it. Well, manipulate is a poor choice of word, but sufficient to explain my powers."

Dazzling lights began to shine from her eyes. "Can you show me an example?"

"I can." A voice behind them replied. All five people simultaneously turned their head to see (impossibly) Tachyon, sitting on the chair right behind them. "Hello, me-from-the-past."

Saten screamed in joy before hopping around the room. "I saw it!~, I saw it!~, oh I'm so going to tell the people on the forums!" She excitedly grabbed her laptop.

"Why, hello, me-from-the-future." Tachyon grinned. "Time, please?"

Tachyon on the chair glanced at his watch. "In approximately 5 seconds, you have to transmigrate to this exact spot. 5...4...3...2...1."

The same metallic whir Kuroko had heard many hours before resounded within the room, as Tachyon on the floor was gone. Faint, bluish particles briefly remained on the ground before dissipating. Saten shrieked in joy as she furiously began to type on her laptop.

"So, Shirai, mind introducing-" Tachyon suddenly halted in middle of his sentence. Grabbing the nearest napkin available, he coughed violently into the tissue. Droplets of blood came from his mouth, decorating the napkin.

He looked up to see a variety of expression on the girls' faces, ranging from shock to worry.

"...Well, I probably shouldn't have done that." Tachyon dryly said. "Transmigrating takes away huge chunk of my energy." Grimacing from pain, he slumped in his seat. His breath became slightly louder as he hissed. "So, Shirai," Tachyon picked up from where he left off. "Mind introducing your friends to me?"

"...Ah, yes, well," Kuroko gestured toward the girl with a band of flower on her head. "This is Uiharu Kazari." she than gestured toward the girl now still typing away on her laptop. "This is Saten Ruiko. And you already met us two."

"Hmm, well, thank you for letting me crash on your place, Kazari-san." Tachyon stood up, bowing politely. "Now if you will excuse me-"

"Hold it," Kuroko interrupted him. "You are not getting out so easily. I still have lots of questions to ask."

The sneaky glint within her eyes made Tachyon slightly hesitate. "What questions?"

"Namely, about your powers, for instance. And all other hosts of questions."

"And if I don't want to?" Tachyon replied. "Who's gonna stop me?"

"The moment you walk out of this door I am reporting you as an illegal alien within this city. In minutes you will be actively hunted by the Judgement and the Anti Skill."

"...You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Blackmail? Really? I thought Judgement members were above extortion."

"Judgement members are also supposed to actively report any crime they see happening." Kuroko replied. "Choose wisely."

After few moments of consideration, Tachyon sat back on the chair. "...And I am supposed to trust you with my personal information?"

"You have no other choice." Infuriating smile graced Kuroko's lips.

"...Heh!" Tachyon grunted. "Alright, everyone else please leave."

"Why should we leave?" Ruiko looked up in confusion.

"Because Twintails here is the only one blackmailing me. I don't want many people to know about how my powers work."

"Even if they leave the room, I'm going to tell them later anyway. There is no point." Kuroko flatly replied.

"...Tch. I want all of you to promise me not to tell anyone else this information."

"I give you my word." Kuroko replied quickly, becoming impatient.

Tachyon made himself comfortable in his chair. "What do you want to know?"

"What exactly is your power?"

"...Well, ability to mimic tachyon particles, and to some extent, manipulate." Tachyon leaned back, his arms behind his head. "I'm sure you looked up some information as to what exactly tachyon is at this point. Its a supposedly hypothetical particle capable of traveling faster than light, effectively violating the causality principle."

"I thought nothing could go faster than the speed of light." Ruiko said. "How does tachyon particles achieve that?"

"That's a true, in a sense. In the world of theoretical particles, you can split the particles into three primary groups. A group that always travel slower than light, a group that travels at the speed of light, and the group that travels above the speed of light. The mass also varies accordingly. With mass you are forced to travel slower than light, or if you have an access to an infinite energy source anything with mass can travel at the speed of light. Than there are particles with no mass. Photons are good example, as they are the light themselves. And than there are tachyons, which can travel above the speed of light, as it has imaginary mass. Speed of light is the ultimate speed limit – nothing can exceed it... or go _below_ it. Anything that travels below, at, or above the speed of light is forced to stay on there, unless infinite energy is factored in. Look, it's a lot to take in," Tachyon added, seeing the slightly lost expressions of the group in front of him. "Just know that I can mimic particles that can go faster than the speed of light, as impossible as that sounds."

"So when two of you appeared at the same time..." Kuroko replied.

"Ability to travel faster than time allows one to bypass the causality principle. I arrive at the destination even before I begin to travel. Which is the reason why there were duplicates of mine."

"About what happened while we were fighting..." Misaka spoke. "How weren't you affected by my-"

_VVVVWWWWOOOOOOOOORRRRPPP! VVVVWWWWOOOOOOOOORRRRPPP!_

"Ah, excuse me." Tachyon took out a blue Gekota phone from his pocket, much to Misaka's surprise. Flipping it open, he placed it near his ear.

"누구세요?"

...

"아, 잘 지내고 있냐?"

...

"아, 그렇구나. 난 지금 학원 도시 애 있어. 무슨 일이 있어?"

...

"뭐? 지금?"

...

"..큰일 났군. 그래, 알려줘서 고마워. 조심해. 안녕."

Tachyon closed his phone, and got up, strolling toward the window. He looked out.

"Who was that?" Kuroko asked.

"A friend."

"You have a Gekota Phone?" Misaka excitedly asked.

"Yeah, I am a fan, although I never bought the merchandise. This was a gift. Anyway, I have a bad news."

All four girls looked up at his words.

"Okay, um, how do I put this... Someone is going to attack us."

"Attack us-?"

"Listen, there is not much time." Tachyon turned around. How was he supposed to explain the existence of magicians in few minutes? "Get out of this building first, and than I will explain what's going on."

"Why? What is happening-" Ruiko's words were cut short by a sudden loud explosion. The building shook; objects began to fall to the ground.

"NO TIME!" Tachyon yelled. "SHIRAI, GRAB AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND GET OUT!"

Out of reflex Kuroko had already grabbed the nearest two people, Saten and Uiharu. Right before disappearing, she cast an extremely worried and regretful glance at Misaka.  
Tachyon cursed under his breath. He was rather hoping that she would be able to take at least three with her, and therefore he would be able to escape on his own, although risking another collapse with excessive use of his powers. But now things became more difficult. He only attempted transmigration with multiple people when absolutely necessary, and he highly doubted the chance of succeeding on his current state. He would collapse again, and a dead weight was the last thing they needed.  
"RUN!" He yelled, as they both scrambled to the door. He contemplated on waiting for Shirai to teleport back to them, but after a debris from the ceiling came dangerously close to chopping his arm off, he quickly dismissed the idea.  
Running down the stairs was enough peril as alone – railings and plasters fell off the wall, as they desperately ran down the steps.

"Oof!"

A debris fell heavily on his back, forcing him to trip down the stairs. Thankfully he was near the bottom, although being unceremoniously thrown the down pointy steps was something he did not appreciate. Misaka threw a quick, concerned glance as she ran by. Grunting, he got up, and they reached the entrance of the building, partly blocked by rubble.

"Stand back." Taking out her coin Misaka fired into the entryway, exploding and clearing the opening from the scraps of the building. That action however proved costly, as more heavy objects began to rain down upon them. Sensing a large projectile speed toward them from above, Tachyon tackled into Misaka, punting her out of the exit. He attempted transmigration once more right before a large wreckage fell where he was moments before.  
He did not dare to transmigrate too far from his original location. Several meters from the building he rematerialized, kneeling on the ground, and than he viciously hurled the contents of his lunch from yesterday.

Damn... He needed a break.

But he had no time at this moment. He stood up, wiping his mouth. "Oi, Misaka," He called out to concerned looking esper, as she ran toward him. "Regroup with others, and call for help. I'm dealing with him."  
Before she could protest he sped past her. He already had a nasty suspicion as to who was exactly behind all this. Runic symbols drawn around the apartment in a specific pattern confirmed his theory.

There, on the ground a dozen yard away from the building, stood his adversary. Dressed in a stereotypical mage's clothing, his face hidden within a hood, holding a wooden staff, he looked very out of place, and looked absurdly silly in appearance.

Tachyon slowed his pace, walking in slow pace toward the magician. "Why hello there, another nameless minion!"

The mage turned to face Tachyon as he approached. Slowly lifting his hood, he revealed a face, a face that would have passed as a normal teenager, if it weren't for the complex tattoos than ran down his temple and his cheeks.

"Sanlaf." Tachyon continued in surprise. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Did you really think that you would be able to escape my grasp if you fled into Academy City?" The man named Sanlaf replied in a coarse voice. "Didn't expect me to attack in a broad daylight, did you?"

"First, I didn't flee. I left you on the ground, knocked out cold." Tachyon shrugged. "Second, coming to Academy City was a pure accident, although an accident within my favor."

"It will do you well not to underestimate me so much." Sanlaf smiled, a smile that did not contain normal, everyday pleasantness you might see from people, but the smile that spoke volumes in terms of anger. "I will not rest until my comrades' deaths are avenged."

"Third," Tachyon continued. "If I said it once, I said it thousand times; I was not involved with the deaths of your friends."

"WRONG!" In a burst of rage, Sanlaf waved his arm in a large arc – shockwaves originated from his spot, and ground shook once more. Tachyon leapt from his position and landed on the side to avoid the cracking ground.

"Calm down!" Tachyon yelled in the midst of rumbling noise. "Earthquake is the last thing this island needs!"

However Sanlaf was on the roll. Runic cards burst from his cloak, scattered all over the place. Cracks on the ground formed in many places, as objects on the road began to hop around. Tachyon sprinted forward, avoiding the obstacles strewed on the road. Sanlaf concentrated his attack toward Tachyon, making sure that they had ample space between them to give himself an edge in this battle. Tachyon was forced to dodge left and right to avoid hazards that flew his way; stepping back, Tachyon formed his hand into a gun shape, making firing gestures.

"타키온 탄알!"

Small amounts of tachyon particles were compacted into a shape of a bullet, their movements restricted within the sphere. As their movements were not unified, they were not capable of exceeding the speed of light, but they were still incredibly fast, regardless. It seemed as though blue lasers were being fired from Tachyon's finger gun as Sanlaf initiated air shockwaves to shatter them. Those defense movements alone was enough to keep Sanlaf efficiently distracted from demolishing the general area. Tachyon desperately wished for some sort of reinforces arrive to neutralize the situation, not caring for the fact that he, also, would be found out as an illegal immigrant. He was confident enough to take Sanlaf on, but last time they did it left the general area being inhabitable.

Battle raged on as both sides concentrated upon ranged attacks, one side wishing to keep the collateral damage low, and the other side willing to do anything to kill his opponent.

He needed food, he needed energy. Taking out a chocolate bar from his jacket, he hurriedly unwrapped it and ate it with his left hand while continuing to fight. This action only caused Sanlaf to be more angered, as he mistakenly recognized Tachyon's action to be a mocking statement.

Upon receiving a sugar boost, Tachyon attempted transmigration once more to appear behind Sanlaf. Like before, Tachyon appeared behind Sanlaf first even before he initiated the travel. He gave a swift roundhouse kick toward his neck while Sanlaf was still distracted by his doppleganger in front of him. He lurched forward, crashing into the ground. Stepping up Tachyon placed his foot on his back.

"Stop this." Tachyon hissed while breathing hard. "We will only destroy the surrounding area. There is no point."

"I agree." Sanlaf replied in a surprisingly agreeable and small voice. "Bring her out!" He called out loud. Tachyon turned around see another hooded being, carrying... Index?

She had a tape over her mouth, her hands tied. The hooded figure took out a dagger and brandished it.

"Back off if you don't want her to get hurt." Sanlaf said to Tachyon in a slow voice. Tachyon did as he was told, contemplating his next course of action. "Now than," Sanlaf got up, cracking his neck. "If you resist me, she gets killed. If any of you resist me," Sanlaf gestured toward the four girls that were nearby, watching. "She gets killed." Pulling his fist back, he swiftly punched Tachyon in the face. Using his shockwave powers, he shattered the air on front of Tachyon's cheeks, dealing exponentially larger damage. Tachyon flew ten feet away, crashing on the ground. The skin on his cheekbones ripped, as the side of his mouth began to bleed. Sanlaf stepped slowly toward Tachyon, relishing this delightfully refreshing experience.

Than a scream was heard in another direction. Tachyon turned to see the hooded figure KO'd by a single punch from a teen with a spiky hair. After untieing Index of her confinement, he ran toward Sanlaf, who the teen identified as an accomplice to Index's kidnapping. Sanlaf didn't stand a chance; the teen's fist shattered the shockwave barrier Sanlaf hurriedly set up with a high pitched noise, and sent him stumbling back from a painful uppercut.

"If you think that you can just kidnap people left and right," the teen shouted in between his punches. "If you can think that you can just use anyone as a hostage for your own good, THAN LET ME BREAK THAT ILLUSION OF YOURS!"

In flew another punch, than another punch, and more, totally ignoring the defenses Sanlaf set up around himself. At last, he was sent flying to the ground, knocked out cold.

Right than and there, Tachyon knew. This man was not a normal person.

This guy was a monster.


	4. Sorry, did you say 20,000?

**In response to fifth review:** I would have liked to send a PM, but you wrote the review in Guest ^.^

The reason why Misaka attacked Tachyon was basically because Misaka saw Tachyon assaulting Kuroko.

Now, I don't really see why that would be OCC. Misaka really doesn't like other people hurting her friends. Although I'll admit I didn't completely understand what you were trying to say in that review; if you still have questions, you can PM me at anytime.

* * *

In space of 12 hours, Tachyon suffered multiple life threatening injuries. Namely, getting hit by a full fledged lightening from the sky. God knows how many volts and amperes that lightening had. Misaka was careful not to directly hit him with lightening (or he would have been killed), but by God did that hurt. And 10 hours later, after absolutely no medical treatment, he gets his jaw fractured with (literally) air shattering punch.  
At this point he did not care about deportation; he cared about his life. He checked himself into a hospital, and now was currently sitting on his bed, eating his breakfast, after an extensive treatment and a nice nap. While his injuries were not serious to the point where he needed to rewire his jaw, he still needed medical attention, and after some repairs, he kinda sounded like Al Pachino when speaking.

Kamijou Touma, upon learning that Tachyon fed Index the other day, and after witnessing his actions to protect Index (Although, the main reason Sanlaf kidnapped Index in the first place was because of her interaction with Tachyon, and Sanlaf theorized that Tachyon cared about her to an extent, although few made this connection), decided to pay him a visit to the hospital along with Index. The funny thing was that Tachyon was currently residing in the same room Touma himself rested within several times.

"So, Kamijou," Tachyon said while taking a sip of his drink. "That ability of yours, it's interesting. How did you manage to shatter Sanlaf's shields? Not even bullets can penetrate a well set shockwave barrier."

The room they were currently in had soft sunlight shining through, vines and their leaves using window as their support, becoming part of the overall view. It gave Tachyon a comforting feeling, in a way.

"It's my right hand." Touma stared his his hand while replying. "Imagine Breaker – it has an ability to break anything supernatural, even God's blessings."

Imagine... Breaker?

"Hold on, the naming itself is confusing to me." Tachyon sat up straighter on his bed. "You have this power... which is only located on your right hand... that can break imagination?"

"Weird way of describing it, but yeah."

The entire concept sounded way too odd for Tachyon. The conclusion he was coming with made too much sense. Was Touma's ability some sort of an inside joke?

"...Kamijou." Tachyon replied after a deep thought. "Is this Imagine Breaker... a euphemism for masturbation?"

A short, awkward silence ensued before being interrupted by Touma's sputter.

"Touma..." an angry Index slowly bared her fangs. Red lights glowed from her eyes.

"Whoa, hold on! Why are you angry with this innocent Kamijou-san? I didn't do anyyyyythiiiiinnnggggg!" he screamed and dragged out the last word of his sentence the moment Index began to bite his head in anger. "FUKOU DA!"

* * *

_A Few Minutes Later_

* * *

Tachyon managed to calm Index down by offering his share of breakfast to her. Pacified, Index began to devour his food while Touma massaged his head.

"So, um, sorry about that." Tachyon scratched his head, looking regretful. "Probably shouldn't have asked that question. Does it hurt much?"

"Eh, well, I'm used to it." Touma sighed, bite marks around his head comically visible. "So, that's my power... What about yours? I assume you have some sort of doppelganger ability?"

Touma saw two mirror images of Tachyon appearing in the swift battle before.

"Bit close," Tachyon leaned back, hands behind his head. "Have you ever heard of Theoretical Particles?"

"I've heard about them."

"Well, what our universe is exactly composed of is the question humanity have been searching for eons. Than atoms were discovered, and a long while later, electrons. Flipped the entire world upside down. And in an increasingly teasing way, the deeper we looked, the more incomprehensible and mindblowing answers and solutions were just beyond out reach. That's where the theoretical particles come in; particles that should theoretically exist if our predictions in our scientific knowledge was correct, and would be able to give the answers we were looking for. Strangelets, Gravitons, Preons, etc. Tachyon is one of them, and I have the ability to control them to an extent."

"Tachyon?"

"A theoretical particle that can travel only faster than light. It is still theoretical as no one managed to produce one in labs as of now. I can kinda control the relationship between causes and effects with this. Let's give an example." sitting up straight, Tachyon clasped his fingers together under his chin. "Someone named A sends a message to someone named B. B receives the message. Now, using tachyons, A sends a message to B again. However, as tachyonic particles exceed the speed of light, B receives the message even before the message is sent. Should be impossible, hmm? Which brings up a philosophical question: is there even a free will? At this point, who dictates when the message is exactly sent?"

"So it's basically a time traveling power."

"If you want to put it that way, than yep."

"That sounds... pretty powerful actually." Touma looked impressed. "I mean, you virtually do anything with time travel. Go back in time, go to the future, all sorts of stuff."

"I wish Time Travel was that simple." Tachyon smiled in bittersweet way. "The only way I can travel through time is when I transform into actual tachyon particles themselves. That action alone greatly drains my energy, as trying to completely control the actions of wildly scattering faster than time particles is incredibly annoying and frustrating. Right before transmigration (as I call it) I have to make tons of calculations surrounding Standard Model, General Relativity, Special Relativity, and more. A slightest miscalculation will result in tachyon particles scattering in all different direction, leaving me divided infinitely along the space and time for eternity... Fortunately, that's the worst case scenario, where the chance of that happening is near non existent with the limits I have placed myself in. The longer the distance of time I go back, the more calculation it requires, and more room for error can occur, equaling the larger possibility of me being screwed. The longest, or farthest I should say, I have ever risked is a single day, I think. And finally, I have a self made rule never to travel back in time to undo my mistakes."

"I don't see any reason why you shouldn't, to be honest." Touma looked intrigued.

"Alright, lets give an example..." Tachyon paused for a moment. "Congratulations Touma, it's your birthday!"

"But today is not my birthday." Touma literally did not know when his birthday was, due to his memory loss. "I mean, I'm almost completely sure it isn't."

"It is your birthday for the argument's sake." Tachyon waved that detail aside. "A genie appears, and gives you a time machine for your present. You can go anywhen you want. And you decide to go back in time and kill Hitler before WW2."

"But I don't think I would want to use my first time travel to kill someone..."

"Details, details. You go to 1920's, and before Hitler publishes his book, Mein Kampf, you kill him. And than you come back to the present time. Do you follow me?"

"I think."

"Alright... But now what? This whole situation becomes a paradox. God knows what will happen after you change the natural course of history (or if there even is a "natural" course of history). You have serious problems in your hands now."

"Alright, now I am confused." Touma replied. "I don't see the problem here."

"Okay, let me explain. Why did you enter the time machine and go to 1920's?"

"To kill Hitler."

"Alright, and you succeeded. But now, you no longer have any reason to go back to 1920's and kill Hitler, since Hitler is now already dead in this modified timeline."

"But..." Touma interrupted. "I would remember that I went back in time to kill Hitler, right?"

"Ah, but how do you know? You are playing with time, a dangerous game. No one knows the rules. Is there a single, unified timeline? Do you even remember what you did while you traveled back in time? Do non-time travelers even remember the original timeline? Is there multiple universes, filled with what ifs and what could have been?"

"There is also a possibility of you not being born due to the actions you took while you are in the past." Index said in the midst of her meal.

"Index brings up a good point. You can potentially destroy yourself in this process. How would anyone risk anything in this situation?" Tachyon leaned back, sly smile upon his lips. "No one dares to mess with time, lest they doom themselves. I assume you have dealt with magicians, Touma, seeing you are accompanying Index."

Touma stared at Tachyon in surprise. "You know about magicians?"

Tachyon let out a bitter laugh. "Touma, I'm in one of their top hit lists. The mere thought of someone who can alter time without the need of magic shakes them in their boots. They wish to control time all by themselves, and time magic is one of the most heavily guarded secrets of the grimoires; those who could control time and space are the supremacists who could control history. Of course, the trick is to somehow use it without causing an unwanted chain of events, easier said than done. Every single thing you do while traveling through time, even the action of simply existing outside of your normal timeline, causes an anomaly. You can't prevent that. You forfeit any rights of keeping the timeline "normal" the moment you travel through time. Many schools of magic have pondered this problem and have failed. Sure, one could travel through time and make yourself not able to interact with the occurring events, like some sort of ghost, perhaps by using pocket universe trick; but that already defeats the purpose of time travel, unless your goal is knowledge, not manipulation." Tachyon looked up. "To be able to manipulate time to do your bidding would be like having a portion of the God's power itself. Who would oppose you?"

Well, except for Imagine Breaker, Tachyon supposed. If his right hand can negate any supernatural ability...

Could it negate the alteration of timeline events? What then?

* * *

The door to the hospital room opened, and in entered the top doctor who resided over this hospital - Heaven Canceller.  
What Tachyon did not know, however, was that this unassuming medical genius had many rumors surrounding around him: his ultimate goal in saving patients, his life saving streak, his connection to the perhaps most influential individual in the world due to his supposed invention of a machine that could extend a being's lifespan to almost two millennium. But enough of that for now.

"Eh, what's up doc'?" Tachyon was currently eating baby carrot sticks with his forks. "Kinda makes me nervous, seeing you coming here personally to deliver the news."

"It is nothing serious." Heaven Canceller replied. "Just some minor info to give about your health."

Tachyon placed his food dish on the side of his bed. "Alright then... Give it to me straight, Doctor Gekota."

Heaven Canceller frowned. "Doctor Gekota?"

"It's a nickname. Everyone needs a nickname." Tachyon scratched his head. "Unless you don't like that one."

"I would prefer it if you called me Heaven Canceller."

"Heaven Canceller...?" Tachyon furrowed his eyebrows, than smiled. "Oh, I get it, you cancel people from going to Heaven... That's a cool nickname you got there. Hahahaha..."

"Yes, well..." The doctor pulled out Tachyon's medical files from his coat pockets. "You had several burns at points in your body I assume you got it from an electrical shock, along with some abdominal problems. Thankfully, I am almost certain that you broke no bones from that attack. On the other hand however, your jaw was fractured to the point that it there would have been some irreparable damage to it had you not checked yourself into the hospital. Thankfully there is no lasting damage on your cheek or jaw, but as there is still some stitching within them, please try not to move them too much, and be very careful when yawning, as they can ruin the stitching. Really, what have you been doing for past 24 hours?"

"Doctor," Tachyon ignored Heaven Canceller's question, changing the topic. "Have you noticed anything irregular about my body while treating me?"

"Now that you have mentioned it, yes." he placed the notes back within his coat pocket. "I assume you are aware of it."

"I am." Tachyon sat up on his bed. "So there is no lasting damage to my body?"

"This time, no. Please do take care not to be involved in dangerous situations." Although Tachyon said nothing about his life, Heaven Canceller seemed to know all about the dangers within them. "You only have one body, after all."

"I don't get involved with dangerous situations, doctor, more often than not." Tachyon smiled.  
"They get involved with me."

* * *

Heaven Canceller insisted that Tachyon stayed in the hospital for one more day. In the next morning, bright rays of sunshine shone through the windows as Tachyon began to collect his possessions. He was rather surprised to find that he was not hunted down by the police at this point, him being illegal immigrant and all. The doctor may have bent some rules for his patient and decided not to report his status within this city, but Tachyon saw absolutely no reason to do that.

First order of operation: he needed to find a place to sleep within. This was trickier than one would imagine it to be, as he had no form of valid ID of this city whatsoever.  
Second order of operation: Find his mining pod and beat the everloving life out of the person who took his machine.  
Sitting down on the nearby bench, he began to scratch his hair in deep thought.

After some thinking, he took out his phone once more. He dialed a number he placed within his contacts yesterday.

...

"Hey, Touma, this is Tachyon. I want to ask something..."

* * *

Kamijou's apartment was rather humble. 8 story building, dorm rooms designed to accommodate a single student each for the Academy City boys. Keyword on single. Right now Touma had one extra freeloader, and now he was about to gain another tenant.  
Tachyon seriously hoped that Touma wouldn't mind his brief stay. He had money, so maybe it wouldn't be as hard to convince him as it appeared to be. Stepping out from the elevator and approaching the door, he pressed the doorbell once.

After a brief moment footsteps approached. The door swung open, and a noise of something smashing occurred all the way back in the apartment. "Such misfortune... Anyway, come in." Kamijou waved his arms in welcome. "I hope you don't mind small spaces."

"I just need somewhere to sleep in the night. I am rather suspicious of hotels, as I am not even supposed to be here."

"Ah, well see, about that...There is only one bed. And Index sleeps on it."

"...Ah." Tachyon nodded in understanding. "So you sleep on the floor?"

"Um, no. I sleep in the bathroom."

Bathroom? How would anyone stand sleeping in a bathroom? "Why not on the floor?" Tachyon was bewildered.

"Eheheh..." Touma chuckled nervously. To tell the truth, he didn't trust himself to sleep in the same area with another girl, so he locked himself in the bathroom to prevent himself from doing something that shouldn't be done. Sympathy should be granted to this poor high school student that accommodated other people as well.

"Well, I guess I am sleeping on the floor than." Tachyon fished something out from his jacket. "Here." He tossed a card to Touma. "Consider this as both deposit and entire rent for the stay."

Touma managed to catch the object, and inspected it. His mouth fell open.

"...Tachyon," Touma replied. "Isn't this..."

"Black Centurion Card, yes. Mind you, I don't own that, that's government issued. Don't spend too much."

"But, wait, you don't understand..."

"Ah, you think that will attract too much attention? Good point, just use it on the ATMs to pull out cash. I'll write you the PIN later, as someone might be listening."

"No, it's not that, but the fact is that this Kamijou-san is officially proven as misfortunate. My Imagine Breaker is supposedly siphoning out luck, or God's Blessing according to Index. I might lose both this card and the written code!"

"Well then," Tachyon genially replied. "PIN you can just memorize and you can destroy the paper, and I can always freeze the account. If you lose the card, well, I suppose my sponsors won't be happy about that, but it's not irreplaceable." He shrugged. "It's adequate payment. Now, I need to get going. Tell Index I said hello." Tachyon glanced at the nun, who was concentrated on Magical Powered Kanamin. "I'll probably be back at night."

Tachyon left, while Touma stood there, gaping at the black card.

* * *

The Green Mart within the Academy City housed impressive amounts of manga. While Tachyon would have appreciated translated versions more, he still used his limited knowledge in Japanese written language to full extent. Speaking he had little trouble with, reading and writing he needed practice.  
One thing he did notice was that some of those comics had dog eared pages all over. Someone was reading them, marked the pages, and didn't bother to buy them... Feeling the stare of the store manager on his back, Tachyon decided to buy the used manga for the time being, taking one for the team, and all that.  
It was still pretty early in the morning, and a blissful stroll around the city seemed desirable. Munching on the hot dog bought from a food booth, he sat on a bench, surveying the atmosphere. Teenagers moved about in their desire to spend their last few weeks of vacation in best way possible.  
Was that Misaka? Tachyon wondered as he spotted the familiar short haired brunette... Wearing a swanky gear on her head. Standing up, he decided to say his greetings as he walked toward her.

"Yo, Misaka-san." Tachyon waved his arms. The girl turned around, and observed him walking toward her. "I assume you have many questions as to what exactly happened that morning, eh?"

He was of course referring to his battle with Sanlaf. The apartment itself was not in good conditions at the end of it, as expected.

"Are you referring to Onee-sama? Asks Misaka."

Onee-sama? And why was she suddenly referring to herself in third person?

"Nah, I'm talking to you, Misaka. Dunno who this onee-sama is." Tachyon internally frowned. Was she acting silly on purpose?

"I do not know what you mean by 'what happened that morning', replies Misaka. Perhaps you have met my onee-sama, and confusing Misaka for her, Misaka hypothesizes."

Something was wrong. While she looked exactly like Misaka, and Tachyon could have sworn it was her, but they way she spoke and the tone of her voice suggested something different...

"Oh come on Misaka," Tachyon smiled. "Don't pretend not to know me. Heck, we were involved in hectic situation together. That at least counts as an acquaintanceship!"

"I am almost certain that you are confusing Misaka for onee-sama, Misaka replies. Misaka is not onee-sama, but her younger sister, Misaka explains."

Okay, her constant reference of herself as Misaka was confusing him to no end, but he still got the gist of her words.

"So... you are like her twin, or something?"

"Not exactly, Misaka replies. Misaka is Onee-sama's younger sister, Misaka explains again."

"...Kay, sounds interesting." Tachyon grinned. "So you are her younger twin, huh..."

"Affirmative, Misaka replies."

"Alright, so whats with the fancy goggles? Looks nice." Tachyon pointed at the gadget on her head.

"This is an Electron Goggle, Misaka explains. This enables Misaka to see electron beams and magnetic field lines, Misaka elaborates."

Because apparently you need to see those field lines for everyday life. But it did look cool, to tell the truth. "So, I guess you wear this goggle to differentiate yourself from your sister?" Tachyon replied.

"Negative, Misaka says. This is for battle usage, used to enhance weapon accuracy and electric powers, Misaka explains."

...Whoa. Battle situations. Tachyon at this point had no way to tell when she was joking or was being serious. "Alright, that's cool. How many sisters are there in your family?"  
Only her and Misaka maybe? Perhaps three at the most, Tachyon estimated.

"In total, the number of sisters is about 20,000, Misaka explains."

* * *

Disappointed by the lack of action in this chapter? No worries, something big is happening on the next one.


	5. The Nerve-Wrecker 2000

**The views of this story just hit 1k! Now for a special event. Tell me in reviews the direction this story should head in! I'll set up poles for the options given, and we'll have a vote.~**

* * *

Here is the age old question: Do clones have souls?

To any religious person this is a hard question to tackle. Clones do not fall under the category of human beings born 'naturally'. Their DNA is copied from someone else, and extrapolated to create something similar, but not exactly the same, regardless of the appearance. One would argue that environment they grew up in matters just as much as the genes themselves. A person might turn out different with multiple backgrounds. In this case, raised in laboratory, under the space of possibly mere months, all 20,000 of them, designed to be as close to the original as much as possible. But did that mean that they were all the same?  
Were clones comparable to nephilims, beings without souls?  
Did clones even have a proper place in everyday life? Would society accept them into their community?

All these thoughts and many more raced through Tachyon's thoughts as he slowly began to grasp the extremity of the situation. He had no idea why this particular clone was so talkative about something that should be secretive, but he was not complaining.  
Why was the reason such a large number of clones were created for? Experimental purposes? Test to see the limit of similarity between the clone and the original? Did Mikoto even know about this? If they were freely wondering around the city, conspicuous, he highly doubted the lack of Misaka's knowledge about this situation. Did she agree to this? Tachyon was under the impression that he was a good judge of human beings. Now he was unsure.

Did he himself had the clone's best interest's in mind? He would secretly, shamefully confess that he viewed having 20,000 of same clones as more of a liability. Yes, he would admit it: he currently viewed clones as lower beings compared to the original.  
And he really hated himself for having that opinion. He really did. But that didn't change his thoughts on the situation. How will those 20,000 clones even live? Where will they go? People who preached about equality of clones and humans didn't have answers to those important questions.

Was he himself, a bad human being?

"You are spacing out, Misaka observes. Is there something on your mind? Misaka asks."

Tachyon slowly turned to observe the clone sitting next to him. He really, really did not know what emotions he was feeling at that moment.

"Twenty thousand..." Tachyon muttered. "Well than, which number are you?"

"That information is classified, Misaka clarifies. To see if you are involved with the experiment, Misaka will verify your password. ZXC741ASD852QWE963."

If he answered that question, he could probably figure out all there was to it to this entire experiment. He did notice that the code was the repeat of first three letters of the rows in QWERTY keyboard, and the repeat of the column of numbers on a typical number pad. Poorly written code, really. Too easy to remember. But perhaps they were relying on the logic of having complicated password in simple sequences.

But his mind was blank.

Even if he could conceivably figure out the algorithms involved with the given code in seconds he did not feel like contemplating the answer. He silently gazed at the clone.

"Since you are unable to decode the password at this time, you do not appear to be a part of this experiment, Misaka confirms." the clone stood up. "It was nice meeting a friend of Onee-sama. Now I must get back to researching, Misaka explains."

"Yeah, I understand..." Tachyon replied in a small voice. "See you later..."

...What was that, really?

* * *

Was that a prank? A late April fools joke? Was he now a part of those weird Japanese TV shows where they pick a person to be tricked and filmed, for the amusement of the audience? He would be extremely unhappy because of his pride and the insensitivity of the people responsible if that was the case, but he would be extremely relieved at the same time. On the other hand, if there really was twenty thousand clones, than that was a different story.

The more Tachyon thought about it, the more possible answers that he came up with, more additional questions emerged. The clones referred to themselves as third person. Why? It was as if someone was reading a novel out loud, and spoke both the dialogue and the sentence describing it.

Wait, that was a perfect analogy. What did the sentence describe about the dialogue? Mainly emotions. They lacked emotions. Lacking an intercultural part to a normal conversation they mentioned their feelings along with it, as they either did not have the ability to convey them or had their emotions suppressed. They were not robots, but rather clones, capable of every cognitive abilities humans were capable of themselves. Than the possibility of their emotions suppressed were larger...

Tachyon began to squeeze his brains more for information. If he was a researcher who wanted to create clones in fast and efficient way, he would grow the clone inside the laboratory inside a container, and feed them necessary nutrients. But still they lacked the mental growth. The clone in result would have a mental state of a baby, incapable of everyday life activities. Than he would invent a machine that processed all the necessary information and mental level into one's mind. The emotional part of the mind was largely suppressed, he theorized; emotions went against controversial and life threatening experiments.  
...But why? One or two or three clones he could find reasons for creating, for example, organ replacement. 20,000 clones was a huge number in this context. The process of creating clones could not possibly be inexpensive. And then there is this million dollar question: What were they used for?

Right then and there his doppelganger appeared a yard away from him in a metallic whir. Tachyon stared at himself with questioning look. His future-self gave a slight nod.

Than he transmigrated; the spot he was in mere moments before began to glow brightly with green light, magical symbols appearing on that spot. The ground crackled as earth itself began to send out plants crawling within the boundary of the magical circle. Tachyon however was in a safe distance away from the trap.  
Land mine. He recognized the magical structure of the plant trap. This was a signature move of a magician he knew.

"Might as well come out, Zoremos. Wherever you are."

The earth rumbled as a man began to rise out from the ground. It was the same magician as the one that held Index hostage mere days before.

"Earth is my stronghold, my area of power," He began to sing in a clear voice. "Swallow this man with dirt, Devour!"

Tachyon ran; holes began to form as earth collapsed, quickly following him. Forming his sword he swung at the mage, who countered with earth sprouted from the ground, forming into a hard stone. Sparks flew as the blade clashed with the granite. Tachyon swung and swung repeatedly trying to find a weak point in his defense. The magician drew up more and more columns of stones to counter. Tachyon briefly wondered about the lack of reaction from the crowd and hypothesized the influence of runic barriers.  
The battle continued until packs of stones completely surrounded the magician.

"My intention is not to fight, but to deliver a punishment." The stone gradually broke down, revealing the mage inside. "As you will see, I have a hostage."

He snapped his fingers, and a large bag arose from the ground, as if the dirt was spitting it out. He ripped the bag open and grabbed the person inside by her collar and held her on front of him like some sort a shield.  
It was the Misaka clone.

Tachyon groaned out loud in frustration. "Seriously? Are you guys going to continuously kidnap every single girl you see me talking with? Are you guys that much of a pervert? What do you think this is, RPG eroge dating game?"

"The identity of the person is not important if it fulfills its purpose." The mage replied in a dull voice. "You seem to care about them."

"Alright, let's get this over with. It's the same thing every single time with you. You invent something, with a weird purpose that doesn't even work, with a weird ass name, which somehow screws up its functions in a weird way."

His inventions insulted, the mage's face grew purple. "Silence! This is a better gadget than my previous designs!"

"So you admit that the previous ones sucked than."

Growling, Zoremos whipped out his newest contraption. "Behold! The Nerve-Wrecker 2000!"

It was a colorful gun with multiple liveries, resembling a toy a child might use. Tachyon laughed.

"That? That's your newest invention? That looks like something taken out from Spy Kids!" Tachyon grabbed his stomach, howling. "Hey, Zoremos, how much royalties did you have to pay to NERF to create that thing? Hahaha!"

Zoremos' eyes flashed in anger as his face grew more purple. "Shut your face! This invention will make give you more sorrow than you can imagine! The remorse spell capacity inserted into this thing will make anyone think of themselves lower than dirt! Let's see if you can take this!" Aiming it toward Tachyon, he pulled the trigger. A bright laser flew from the muzzle.  
Sobering up, Tachyon readied his sword. He began to carefully observe the approaching projectile.

_Direction trajectory... Calculated._

_Three dimensional Cartesian coordinates... Calculated._

_Meters per second... Calculated._

_Wind speed - Spell Projectile. Not Applicable._

_Reflecting trajectory with an object... Calculated._

_Angle of the reflection... Calculated._

_Exact timing of reflection... Calculated._

In an instant Tachyon held his sword on front of his face in an angle; with the sound of screeching steel the spell beam bounced off of the blade, flying back toward where it came from. Gulping, Zoremos hurriedly placed the Misaka clone on front of him.

_...S**t._

On the spur of the moment he forget the hostage.

The beam hit the Misaka clone squarely on her back; her body shook, before remaining still and falling to the ground.

"MISAKA!" Tachyon yelled loudly. The mage, seeing the anger springing forth from Tachyon's eyes, hurriedly began to set up defenses in panic. Stone began to arise from the ground as he tried to protect himself. Tachyon leapt over the wall and jumped on front of Zoremos, and clasped his hands around his neck.

"YOU-"

"Calm down!" the mage screamed. "She is not dead!"

Tachyon briefly relaxed before reinforcing his choke-hold. "What does that spell do." He hissed through his teeth.

"It only amplifies the self-deprecation in people! Amplifies their flaws and their mistakes in their mind, and their remorse! Nothing harmful, I swear!"

Tachyon cursed; he couldn't continue to interrogate him while also taking care of the clone simultaneously. He threw the magician to the ground. "Go." He growled. Zoremos began to chant under his breath frantically while ground began to swallow him whole.

Tachyon began to check the clone's pulse. Contrary to his fears her pulse had healthy beat and pattern. Slowly turning her body around his began to check for damages. Apart from burns from the rough contact with the ground she appeared to be safe. Shaking her body he attempted to wake her up with no avail.  
Taking out a metal flask from his jacket, he opened the cap and fed a dark red liquid into her mouth.

Her head trembled slightly; grimacing, the clone woke up, staring up at Tachyon's face.

"You just got hit by a magical laser beam from a wacky space gun." Tachyon began to explain as he helped her to her feet. "The devastating effect that would have on a human mind can be quite overwhelming. Especially since you weren't exposed to spell effects before, or so I assume." He was not aware of his confusing ramble, as he was worried about the clone.

"Misaka is bit puzzled by your statement. Misaka assumes that this 'magic' you are talking about is-"

Than it happened.

Maybe the spell took a while to kick in. Maybe the effects of this particular spell was bit incompatible with cloned beings. Whatever the reason was, it did not matter now; the curse became active. Her eyes changed, her grip on his arm tightened significantly.

"Oi, oi," Tachyon said in worry, frown on his face. "That hurts."

Something went wrong. He knew that something was definitely wrong. Number of expressions raced past the clone's face, a face that originally was a mask. Surprise, concentration, indignation, fear, anger, horror, and finally, despair. It was overall creepy and unnerving to watch. He didn't dare to say anything, lest he break her train of thoughts.  
Then he observed that she was very slightly shaking. First at her arms, than at her entire body. Her palms became clammy as cold sweat ran down her back.  
He should say something, he really should. But what should he say? Asking what was wrong at this point in this situation hardly seemed fitting. Or appropriate. But he couldn't stand watching this any longer. But then she spoke.

"...Please... someone, save me..."

"Save you from what?" Tachyon patiently asked. The clone slowly turned her head to face him.

"I'll do anything... Just to escape..."

"Escape? From what?" He hated being a broken record, but he currently had absolutely no idea what she was babbling on about.

"...From this nightmare."

Was she having a hallucination? Tachyon began to wonder as he carefully began to observe her face. He really should have been analyzing the entire situation from ground up and come up with acceptable explanation, but his mind was jammed while watching the clone shake in front of him.

"10030." The clone spoke. "That is Misaka's serial number. 10030."

While although still referring to herself in third person, she stopped describing every dialogue she uttered. Perhaps her emotions were enabled?

"The total amount of sisters produced for the experiment is 20,000." She continued. "Misaka is number 10030, and Misaka is the next experiment."

"Experiment for what?" Tachyon pressed.

She looked up toward him.

"Experiment of killing."

* * *

She showed him all.

He saw everything.

Sometimes he wished he hadn't. But he still did.

From the first battle to the latest, he saw the violence, gore, and terror recorded on nearby satellite cameras, all on his blue Gekota Phone. While he did not watch them back to back, he saw enough.

Railgun Mass Production Plan. Plan to continuously manufacture clones of Number 3 of the Academy City in order to raise the level of the top esper in the city to level 6.

20,000 clones of Misaka Mikoto to act for the original 128 clones planned. As the level of the produced clones were lower than expected, they had to improvise. Someone back in the deep recess of his mind the cold and logical side of him thought of calculating the numerical ratio of power between the level 2-3 and level 5 using this information, but the emotional side of him quashed and completely ignored that thought. He really didn't know how he felt about this situation. He really didn't.

Standing up he began to restlessly walk around while the clone silently watched him. He really wanted to punch something, anything. Smash, destroy. Pain would have been preferable compared to the things he just saw. But public display of violence would do only harm.

He himself had interacted with magicians in his young age, learned magic, and had heard countless tales from each mages about their dreams and ambitions. Their prayers to God went unanswered, and despondent, they turned toward magic for their goals. He constantly wondered as to why God rarely answered people's prayers. Now he knew why. God had seen the evil humans were capable in their minds, and had abandoned them.

"Why... why," Tachyon turned toward the clone with conflicting emotions. "Are none of you protesting about this? Do none of them have a sense of fear? Sense of self preservation? Why didn't any of you refuse?"

Misaka 10030 silently stared before replying. "Misaka views ourselves as non-human beings."

That sentence hit him harder than anything he saw today. That sentence alone adequately summed up his opinion on clones. They were not humans. They weren't, and they never will be. Did that make him just as bad as those researchers who were working on this experiment? Dehumanization led to committing crimes without any moral self repercussion. If only people realized this truth.

Tachyon observed the clone sitting on front of him. Past her facade of calmness, on the inside she was probably terrified. Her pupils were dilated, and her hands still shook if one looked closely enough. He admired her remarkable sense of composure.

It was now afternoon. Her experiment was due to begin soon.

What the hell was he supposed to do about this situation? Go against the strongest esper in the world on one on one combat? He was not even level 5, for goodness sake. The logical side told him to run away from this as far away as possible. The thought of the despair she would feel if he ran away rooted him to his spot.

But as he stared into her eyes and as he saw numerous expressions within her eyes, ranging from dread to anguish, he saw something else, buried far back within her mind.

He saw hope. Hope that someone could possibly save her from being killed. Hope that there still was someone left who would defend them.

It was similar to Pandora's Box, in a way. The only positive emotions lay way behind the back, waiting to be encouraged.

"..."

_Tch..._

He was at a crossroad. A choice, a fork of the road. He could help, or he could run away.

Tachyon walked toward the clone. "Give me every information you have on Accelerator."

The clone looked at him. "Why?"

"Might as well be prepared."


	6. Power vs Potential

When one holds the title of being the strongest, one does not explicitly realize just how much power that person holds. Simply stating the fact never really allows you to truly grasp the situation. Only through actual battles do you know just how strong they were.

And, seeing the battles Accelerator participated in, Tachyon was able to confidently say that he was really, really screwed. Like, totally screwed. This guy so far got hit by: military weapons, mines, electricity, heavy debris, explosions, shrapnel, and etc, and he never received a single scratch. He never had a single injury. According to the records he had seen before the entire military of Academy City went against him when he was a mere child.

Deciding to fight Accelerator was a very foolish move, no doubt, but it wasn't like he could back out of it now. In her every action, the clone literally radiated hope and deep relief at his decision of intervention. That alone probably kept him from running away. He would probably not be able to stand the thought of the despair she would feel if he didn't help.

It was totally weird, in a way. What was his exact reason for doing this?

And there was another question of why this particular clone suddenly had felt waves of emotions for the first time. He couldn't surmise what exactly happened, but he theorized that, since the wacky gadget Zoremos wielded was designed to amplify the negative emotions one had in themselves (temporally, it seemed), it somehow unlocked the emotions the clone had inside her the entire time. The way human minds worked was still subjected toward discussion and conjectures, and he could possibly be very wrong about what exactly happened, but the fact was, this clone now had her own unique emotions that she expressed. The inhumane experiment she and thousand others were subjected to naturally clashed against the self-preservation she felt. Now only if he could enable the emotions all across the network...

But there was a more serious problem at hand. In less than 5 hours he had to face the esper with godmode power. It appeared that no amount of physical force would be able to go through him; he had this impenetrable barrier around him that were immune to heavy force. So physical combat was out of the way.

Than, a more unconventional warfare was required; he was still a human (or so he assumed). He needed to breathe, possibly, and he needed every other human requirements to live. He needed to somehow exploit that. He still had five senses of a normal human being, he also assumed, and that meant that he could possibly use other types of weaponry. Flashbangs, poison gas, irritating noises, etc. The main problem was that he also was subjected toward whatever weapons he was going to use to change the environment. He needed to pack requirements for the protection against the harmful substances he would bring. And even still he doubted their effectiveness against someone like him. He was not burned by the explosions, which meant that his barrier worked on heat, and therefore airborne particles. But could he possibly filter out harmful substances while also managing to supply his lungs with oxygen?

Was Accelerator being clever with his powers? If he had much more potential than he actually showed, and if he was aware about them, than the battle itself would become much harder.

* * *

_Many people within this world give their best effort to protect other people. Whether it be a firefighter, military, medic, or even the clergy. They tirelessly work around the clock to save and rescue people they have no relation with, have no pleasure of knowing each other. Some do it out of necessity for a job, but others do it just because they wish to save others. They are normal, regular human beings, with no abilities to rely upon._

_And than there are people with supernatural powers, and most of them can be compared to a child with a dangerous weapon they do not comprehend about. Separated from the regular world they seek to find a place for themselves using their abilities. Either to destroy others... or to save them._

* * *

A silent figure with white hair stood leaning against one of the many metal shipping containers scattered around the railway cargo holding area. He was chewing something in his mouth like a gum, and based on his expression, he disliked the flavor.

It was 9:50. The 10030th experiment was due to begin in t-minus 10 minutes. The teen leisurely waited for the time, not giving much thought into this particular upcoming experiment. He did these literally over ten thousand times. His expression did not change until he observed a figure slowly walking up toward him. While the time was correct, this time a girl with goggles on her head did not approach him. It was someone else.

One would describe his hair longer than normal, but not by much. His hair started out smooth at the top and formed into spikes around his ears. He wore a long navy blue jacket, clearly larger than his stature. His walk was unlike someone who was headed toward inevitable doom; rather, he walked straight and tall, with confidence visibly showing in each of his steps.

Accelerator raised his eyebrows, interested in this turn of events. The clones were always early and punctual, but now only him approached the cargo area. He was clearly not involved with this experiment.

"Oi, you over there, I would run if I were you." Accelerator called out, smiling with malice. "You wouldn't want to get involved with this place for next few hours."

The mysterious person smiled. "It's a no-show." He called out. "I'm her replacement for this experiment."

Accelerator stood still, hardly believing his ears. Turning around, trying to spot the clone, he called out loud: "Oi, come on! Don't go involving random civilians in this! I suppose I have to kill him now, since he is aware of the experiment, but that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

"See, now, that interests me." the approaching figure replied. "Based on what I have seen, I would have expected you to be happy to be able to kill one more person."

"Well, I don't mind killing people." Accelerator grinned. "But I do mind having the experiment being screwed up. Where is she hiding?"

"Sorry," Tachyon replied, revealing himself from behind the large container. "She does not want to take place in this experiment, and I am not about to sell her out."

Gritting his teeth, Accelerator began to walk toward him. "Why not? None of those dolls minded getting their spines ripped out. Why did this particular one chicken out?"

"Who knows. Perhaps because it was about time someone said no?"

"Say no? None of those clones ever refused." Accelerator chuckled. "Even at the verge of their painful death did any of them protest. Why would they do now?"

"Does it even matter to you if they do protest?" Tachyon replied. "If one of them said no, would you still have gone on with the experiment?"

"Are you joking? Did they ever say no to me? Day by day they throw themselves at me, hoping to give me at least a scratch just for the sake of this experiment. It's totally insane. They give up their lives like it's nothing; it's getting very old." Accelerator grinned and scowled at the same time, giving off a weird look. "They treat themselves with no dignity, and they have no concern for their own life whatsoever. I'll never understand that. Let me ask you a question. I already killed over ten thousands of those clones. Whats the difference of saving one clone out of twenty thousand?"

"What's the difference?" Tachyon replied. "Everything."

"Heh... Hahahahaha~!" Accelerator scoffed in response. "See, you are the most idiotic person I've laid my eyes on. Those clones attack me because they are mere dolls, they are of no loss. You, on the other hand, attack me fully knowing what will happen. And as an additional twist of irony, the very clone you are protecting ran away precisely because she fears for her life! Does your own life mean that little to you? Now, I'll only ask you one more time." He spat out something from his mouth. An insane smile sketched on his lips. "WHERE. IS. SHE? AHHHHHHHHH!" Raising his leg he stomped on the ground; the entire cargo area shook as various surrounding debris began to simultaneous fly toward Tachyon.

Conjuring up his sword, Tachyon gave a diagonal slash toward the flying projectiles; split in half, their momentum gone, they harmlessly fell to the ground.

"Interesting. So their overall decision does matter, in some way." Tachyon raised his eyebrows. "And here I thought you killed them for fun!"

Accelerator stomped on the ground again, and the floor rumbled, visible cracks appearing on the ground. Spikes of dirt popped from the ground dangerously as Tachyon began to run.

"Aw, what the hell." Accelerator yelled in the midst of chaos. "Since you're here, might as well have fun with you!"

Forming his hands into a gun shape, Tachyon began to fire a beam of particle as a test; as expected they flew back before even touching Accelerator, reflected. So that method was out of the question. Plan B, then.

But before he could initiate his plans Accelerator jumped forward seven meters across in one step. Tachyon had already theorized that Accelerator would be able to mutilate his body just like the ground if he touched him; his future-self appearing behind them, and understanding his own intentions he transmigrated. Accelerator grasped on thin air as he just missed Tachyon by mere milliseconds. Intrigued, he turned around.

"What, teleportation?" Accelerator said, boredom clearly showing on his face. "Oh come on, that ability is boring to fight against."

"Close, but no cigar." Tachyon went into a battle stance. "Try again." He transmigrated once, and twice. Three copies of Tachyon were now visible, running amok.

"What is this, illusion?" Accelerator smiled. "Whatever this is, I like it. I like it very much. This is very refreshing compared to having to fight those clones thousands of times." Flying forward, he chased one of the copies; he touched various obstacles as he flew by, and they flung outward as if they were struck by an explosion. Doppelgangers of Tachyon quickly disappeared one by one, as they were under the limitations of transmigration.

Unfortunately, Accelerator picked on the one that transmigrated last, ignoring the other two earlier clones. He quickly conjured up his sword just before Accelerator made his contact with him. His blade shattered on Accelerator's mere touch; frown of disappointment appeared on Tachyon's face as he transmigrated again to avoid the impact.

He was visibly panting at this point from the exertion of his energy. Taking out a respirator he quickly attached it to his face, and taking out a grenade from his jacket, he pulled the pin before throwing it on the ground. Gaseous poison began to spray from the grenade as Accelerator observed the situation, interested as to what he was up to at this point.

Respirator with P100 rating filtered out 99.97% of airborne particles. At the present state Tachyon was safe from the poisonous fumes for some time.

"Oi, running out of ideas?" Accelerator asked in a bored voice. "If poison worked, they would have used it by now, eh?"

But a strange thing happened; Accelerator began to run short of breath as he talked. He observed himself surrounded by poisonous yellow fumes of gas. Than he understood; while he automatically reflected any of the harmful substances from his body, he could not reflect gas unless he also reflected most the surrounding air.

"Hahaha..." Accelerator began to cackle. "Kekekekekeke! Amazing! See, you're actually clever!" Delight filled his face despite the lack of air. "This is much better than fighting thousands of clones! Brilliant! But there is one flaw!" Accelerator grinned wildly as he launched himself from the ground toward the air. "Your plan fails once I move!" Accelerator smashed to the ground from the air, covering the distance of 10 meters in one second. A large crater formed over the impact area; resulting rocks and gravel flew all over the place. A large piece of stone struck Tachyon, not on his jaw, thankfully, but on his cheekbones, sharply scratching the skin open; he flew outwards, landing hard on his back. The mask fell the to the ground, broken.

Alright... Plan C. Taking out a sleep blindfold he placed it over his eyes. Taking out a cylindrical grenade his pulled the pin and threw it far away to the ground. He plugged his ears, turned around, and made sure to open his mouth.

The preparation against his own weapon was not as effective as he would have hoped. Merely 2 seconds after the throw the flashbang went off, and afterward Tachyon went practically deaf from the resulting detonation. Pain began to burn brightly from his ear. Tiny spots of light pierced through the mask despite the mask and having his back toward the explosion. Thankfully, the resulting shockwave failed to rupture his eardrums despite the heavy pressure due to his opened mouth.

Of course, neither the flash or the sounds ever reached Accelerator; subconsciously he had already reflected all of them. But subconscious reflections had its limits; had he actually concentrated on separating the harmful effects from normal effects he would still be able to hear and see to a very little extent. But subconscious reflection blocked out most if not all of the lightshow. For few seconds Accelerator could neither see or hear, his senses completely blocked by his reflection. But he was still safe from all the negative effects.

"Good, this is great!" Accelerator yelled out loud after the explosion, but Tachyon was unable to hear him. "Finally, after boring fight after another, I finally meet a worthy opponent! Hahahahhahahaha! Alright, no limits now!" He flew forward from his spot toward Tachyon, fully aiming to unleash the worst effects of his ability upon him. Tachyon sensed the killing intent from Accelerator, and ripping his mask off, he dragged his fingers in the thin air; tachyon particles began to swirl from his fingertips going beyond the speed of light. Bluish glow emitted from the wall he created.

"타키온 방패!"

Truth to be told, this was a curbstomp battle from the beginning. He had no hopes of winning. But that did not negate the fact that Tachyon enjoyed this battle immensely, almost as much as Accelerator did.

The shield Tachyon set on front of him shattered from a mere touch from Accelerator; they both knew that he had only seconds left of his life as Accelerator reached for his face.

Then at the next moment, Accelerator was peppered with gun shots; confusion sketched across his face as the bullets harmlessly bounced away from his reflection. He turned to see the clone with goggles walking out from behind one of the many metal containers, this particular one receiving all the reflected bullets head on.

Accelerator's fingers was mere inches away from Tachyon's face. They both stared at the approaching girl, dumbfounded.

Finally, Tachyon spoke. "Why the hell are you here?" anger and fear was visible on his face. "Can't you see that I am fighting instead of you? Go!"

"Well, this is interesting!" Accelerator glanced at Tachyon. "She chickened out, according to you."

Tachyon stayed silent, staring at Misaka 10030. The next moment, he disappeared, having already transmigrated behind the clone before he even began to travel.

"I saw fear in your eyes." Tachyon quietly whispered as he stood behind the surprised clone. "Your new found sense of self-preservation should have kept you away. Why did you come back?"

Did the effects of the magical weapon wear off?

"..."

"Because of the same reason you are here."

She did not end her sentence referring to herself. The human emotions were still inside her, running strong. And yet, she came.

"Well this is touching and all..." Accelerator drawled while walking toward them, hands in pockets. "But now since she is here, I'll just kill you both." In one moment, he was walking; in the next, he was flying toward them.

The clone attempted to shield Tachyon with her body, but he already predicted her intentions; roughly grabbing her cuff with his hands he brushed her aside, and met Accelerator head on.

His fingertips touched Tachyon's forehead.

* * *

_One thing you should ask yourself while trying to protect others: Are you willing to sacrifice yourself?_

_It's a tough question to answer. When actually faced with the reality of dying, people converge into two distinct categories. Either to save others, or to run away._

_But than it doesn't matter either way. Choosing not to save others out of fear of your own life does not mean that you are a coward, and choosing to sacrifice yourself for others does not mean that you are an idiot. In the end we all have our unique choices to make. So, going back to his question: Why was he doing this? _

_Was it because the clone asked him to? Was it out of pity and concern? Was it because of his own conscience? Well, mix of those three..._

_...But he was doing this mainly because he __**could**__._

* * *

Pain.

Agony.

...

Disappointment.

Blood freshly came running down from his split forehead. He was flung back many meters straight into the wall of metal containers, denting one of them to an extent. Even after the hard impact his grasp on the clone never faltered; Misaka 10030 was dragged along, slamming right into already injured Tachyon, his body used as a shield for impact.

He was knocked out cold, and despite the heavy battle he faced, he still held a peaceful countenance.

Placing his hands upon one of the many containers, Accelerator began to force his hands through the metal cover. His opponent was unconscious, and now he had no chance to escape. Lifting up the entire box with one arm, he slammed it toward them, the object traveling at sixty miles per hour.

The clone gently began to caress his face, her face filled with numerous expressions, ranging from sorrow to regret.

The cargo crashed against the containers, as the wheat flour inside them burst out from the pierced openings.

* * *

The End?


	7. A Daring Rescue

It felt like this sleep was no different from every other single sleep he had. In his deep slumber, his activity from the night before was largely ignored in his lethargic mind. But even than, a deep sense of foreboding swept over his body. Although he was still semi-conscious, he had this deep sense of urgency... He was doing something, no doubt something dangerous, but he could not remember what it was. His mind felt like it was fractured into many pieces. He was unable to concentrate upon a single thing, and he merely floated around in a cloud of haze. Constant physical contact on his body slowly prompted him to wake up...

...To see a girl's face inches away from his face, with large unblinking brown eyes.

"AAAAAAAAAAARRG!" Tachyon yelled in surprise while trying to scramble up, but failing once his entire body began to ache in protest. Severe pain began to flash from various places on his body as he grimaced painfully. Something wet and sticky was on his head- was that blood?

"God#$#%, what was I doing?" he questioned while staring at his surroundings. It was early in the morning; he was in a cargo area of some sort, with various gravel and debris scattered around, as if they were in a heavy storm. Large metal containers were peppered all over the place. His own clothing was for some reason partially covered in white powder.

"Wait, wait," Tachyon placed his finger over the clone's mouth before she could speak. "I remember, I was fighting him; it was a spectacular fight to death, no doubt, and... I lost." Tachyon frowned. "Well, I'm not too disappointed, that result was to be expected... But that doesn't explain why you and I are safe... unless this is heaven... without clouds and angels?" He glanced at the clone, who had only scratches on her body. "He is not the type of person to leave anyone alive... So... what?"

"We were rescued... by you." the clone said. "You appeared after you were injured..." she trailed off, as if her own words were conflicting with her inner sense of logic. "And than we were transported here, instantly. Away from the impact."

A short silence followed as Tachyon pieced together what happened.

"Oh, okay, I escaped, then." After checking for the vital parts of his body, Tachyon began to smile. "Brilliant. Love it when I do that." He beamed at the clone. "And you survived too! Mission accomplished!"

"Misaka has no idea as of what exactly happened..."

"Ah, I'll be able to explain it better after I rescue ourselves. It's pretty clever actually." Ignoring the overbearing signals of pain he propped himself up against the cold metal cover of a cargo. He checked his watch for accurate measurement of time. He was rather hoping he could attempt the rescue later, but he had to accomplish this within the 24 hour mark, and the less distance between the time travel meant easier transmigration. He had to do this quick.

"I'll... be right back."

Traveling back in time to intervene on his own timeline was something he was against doing, but since he already had done so... No point in not doing it now. Concentrating, his body began to convert into tachyon particles, and he traveled faster than light...

* * *

...Dang.

He looked handsome. Especially with trickles of blood along his face, that just made him look sexier. Although at the current circumstances he should have been concentrating more on the actual rescue.

Looking down, he saw the clone gawk at him. Her expression switched from that of despair into amazement. His past self was on the ground, bleeding profusely. Gazing at the clone briefly, he gave her a small smile as reassurance. Crouching down, he placed his hands on both of them- well, himself and her in this case.

Transporting two people at once... This would be tough. But he always relished a challenge. In an instant all three of them were transmigrated to the front of another cargo container 3 boxes away.

All this took place in the space of 3 seconds.

The entire switchyard shook violently as both cargoes collided. It was a very close call, in hindsight. He smiled at the successful rescue, despite the pain from the sensation akin to having his brain being hammered into mush. His adrenalin was gone a long time ago, and now he felt every bit of pain from his injuries. Telling his screaming body that his much needed rest was near, he transmigrated back once more.

The night turned back into day as he rematerialized back to when he was several meters away from the clone and himself. His transmigration was more off than he expected, a distressing sign of his fatigue. Standing up haphazardly he hobbled back toward the clone; his breathing became more and more heavier as he carried his protesting body few meters forward.

"How long was I away?" He asked her in a worried tone.

"You were away for about an hour." the clone replied.

...Okay, he was off with both the distance and the time. This was bad. A single miscalculation could result in disastrous result. "Mmm, sorry about the delay; didn't mean to keep you alone for so long."

"Misaka is still confused as to what exactly happened." the clone scooted near him, looking at him expectantly for proper explanation.

"...Well, I used my powers to travel back in time to rescue ourselves from the resulting impact. I had to travel back, and transport total of three people (including myself) to this location to prevent them from being crushed by a cargo, and travel here back here, where I started. And than I would woke up to do the same thing again. It's a... paradox. I saved myself. Now Accelerator was unable to see me materialize out of nowhere, as the metal container he threw toward in our direction blocked us from his point of view. He still thinks we are both dead, I'm willing to bet. Any questions?"

The clone was silent, trying to process all this confusing information.

"Misaka now knows more about what happened... But now Misaka has more questions than before."

"Mmm, I guess. But it'll take forever to explain completely everything. I'll tell you in another time. As for now, we both need medical treatment immediately. I sustained enough damage to knock myself out, again, and despite that I had to travel three more times. That can't be good for my health." Taking out his blue Gekota phone, he began to ponder which number to dial. Emergency number for ambulance in Korea was 119... which could be possibly be same for Japan. He dialed that number in his phone; he still wondered as to why they never bothered with his lack of proper ID, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Hello, emergency line? Yeah, I need immediate medical assistance..." Tachyon began to talk into the phone. "I'm not even sure where I am. I'm in 17th district, and I see a bunch of metal containers scattered around." He waited for some time. "Maybe try to triangulate my position using my phone?"

"..."

"Well, alright, Thank you." Snapping his phone shut, he began to make himself comfortable on the ground. He'll give 8 minutes, give or take, for the ambulance to arrive where they were. And now for some intense thinking on what happened...

...At first, he had several different predictions about the outcome of the battle; either he won, which was drastically unrealistic in hindsight, or he got killed and hopefully everyone else was satisfied enough at his death to leave the clone alone, which was also equally foolish, looking back. He never really thought about what would be the exact outcome, as thinking too much about inevitable end was something he wished to avoid. He just charged in, head on, and hoped for the best...

Well, he got what he wanted, didn't he? Both of them, safe and sound... for the time being.

"What do you want to be called?" Tachyon looked toward the clone. "I can't just call you Misaka. You should have a unique name. And besides, today marks the beginning of your full fledged human life. Free to do whatever the heck you want, pursuit of happniess, unalienable rights, and all that."

The clone appeared surprised at this question. "A unique name..." Misaka clone began to mouth the words. "Misaka is fine with Misaka as Misaka's name."

"See, that sentence alone is confusing." Tachyon laughed while replying. "It's about time you picked your own name. Tell you what, I'll give you a day to decide. Pick a good one."

Sure, he didn't win this fight... But he saved her nonetheless.

And that was the important thing.

* * *

So apparently his situation was worse than he thought possible.

They stated that he "sustained too much damage to be able to stay conscious" and "In danger of fatal levels of injuries". He didn't exactly pay attention to the nurse, as if all her words went into his one ear and went out in the other. Based on what the nurse said others would have thought that he was in precarious situation, yet in his opinion his wounds were not serious... Although he was the last person anyone should ask. He was in perilous situations since he was 10.

After the she finished her review of his conditions, next entered Heaven Canceller. He was as of yet unsure of the doctor's personality, and he had no idea if he was going to lecture him for coming to hospital so soon after his last stay... Now that he thought about it, he didn't even last 24 hours.

"How is she?" He asked him before the doctor could have the chance to speak. "I hope she is in much better shape than I am."

The doctor took a glance at his clipboard.

"She only received minor scratches. A day in hospital should be fine. You, on the other hand, won't survive much longer if you continue to receive these kinds of injuries." He gave Tachyon gentle yet reproaching glance. "You somehow managed to avoid messing up the wires in your jaw, but you received significant harm, including multiple open wounds and second concussion."

"Mmm," he needed to pacify the doctor first before saying anything else, it seemed. "I'll stay within this hospital as long as my body needs to. I'll make sure that from now on I won't receive as significant damage as this one, I promise. But about that girl, doctor..." Tachyon paused briefly, as if he was considering what and how to say what he had in mind. "Her lifespan is, how should I say, limited, right?"

Clones manufactured within factories were produced in the matter of weeks. In order to accelerate their growth one would inject them with all sorts of chemicals. But at the faster rate of production came the con of having shorter life; this was not a concern for them as they were killed almost immediately after they were produced. This was the conclusion he arrived at with some thinking. He hoped that he was wrong; he did not go so near the death's doorsteps to have her die at early age.

The doctor appeared surprised at Tachyon's knowledge about the situation. "Legally I am not allowed to give out info of other patients. But I will not say that you are wrong."

A short silence followed. He just went through a truly difficult fight to keep her alive. She can't just die so soon after this.

"...She has nowhere else to go." Tachyon continued. "She is a result of a scientific experiment. Technically speaking she is considered dead right now. I can't tell you much about this since I am not even supposed to know this information. But, she needs a place to stay." He gave a determined stare at the doctor. "Let her stay at the hospital for the time being. I'll pay the bills, and whatever else the hospital needs."

Unbeknownst to Tachyon, Heaven Canceller already knew much of the evil behind the clone experiment. He also had some sort of idea as to what Tachyon was exactly fighting against. He came to the conclusion that Tachyon had a very good reason to receive these injuries.

"Don't worry about money. I'll make sure the hospital will take care of her." Heaven Canceller moved toward the door. "A week's stay should be sufficient for you. I would make you stay for more, but I presume you don't have that much time on your hands. I'll go tell her the news."

Tachyon smiled.

"I'll tell her the news." Gently lifting himself up from the bed, he sat on the nearby wheelchair. "I have other things to talk with her anyway. This is the only time I'll move away from the bed, I promise." He said before the doctor could have the chance to protest.

* * *

Taking out his phone and quick dialing to a number, Tachyon held it near his ear while rolling the wheelchair with one hand.

3 tones, 6 tones, 9 tones, 12 tones... And someone picked up.

"Erm, hello! This is Index Libror—excuse me, I'm sorry, this is Kamijou speaking, that, hello, hello?" Index sounded very nervous as she spoke into the phone.

"...If Touma sounded like you I would be much worried." Tachyon replied dryly. "Is he at home? I need to talk to him."

"Oh, hi Tachyon! So all voices within the telephone do sound different!" knocking sound was heard. Was Index prodding the phone?

"Well of course they all sound different. Otherwise it would be inefficient. Touma is not at home than?" He seriously hoped he was.

"Touma is at something he called "supplementary classes". He apparently needs to take classes in summer."

"...I see." Well, this was bad... "At what time does he usually come back?"

"I think around at the end of the day, at 9, maybe?"

This was definitely not a good news. He needed to contact Touma ASAP in order to explain the situation to him. "Hmm, I see. Well, when he does come back, tell him to give me a call okay?"

"I will! Can I hang up now? Touma said that for every minute you spend on a phone, you die a day earlier!"

...Whiskey,

Tango,

Foxtrot.

"Um, what?" Tachyon blankly replied. "He said that?"

"Mm-hmm!"

"Well, he was lying than. Calls don't kill you. Why would anyone invent a utility with unnecessary side effect such as that?"

"Wait, so you don't die earlier...?"

"If it did, why would everyone use it? It's like inventing a communication spell that also slowly kills you. Why would anyone use it?"

"Waahhh! That Touma! He always says such stupid things!" She sounded quite indignant at Touma's lies. "Oh, I can't wait until he comes back home..."

"...Well, now that you know. I'll call back later."

"Okay. See you later Tachyon! Bye!"

Clicking his tongue, Tachyon snapped his phone shut. He needed to tell Touma about the general situation; perhaps it was too big of a request, asking him to intervene on this situation... However, by at this point the next clone in line for the experiment was probably dead, and as time went by more and more would be massacred. He had no simple solution to this problem other than asking for help. If what Touma said about his right hand was true, than could it possibly pierce through the impenetrable barrier Accelerator had around himself? Would he even accept his request for help? No one would be able to think less of anyone that would refuse this insane request. Heck, he considered himself rather insane and extreme when pushed to his limits.

Pushing open the door to the room she was located within, he went inside, rolling his wheelchair. The clone was sitting up on her bed, staring outside the window. She still had her goggles on her head.

"Well, here is the news." Tachyon moved closer toward the bed. "Since no one is supposed to know that you are alive, you are staying in this hospital until further notice."

He seriously hoped that Heaven Canceller did not tell the clone about her limited lifespan. Ignorance was a bliss.

"...Well, I mean, living in hospital sounds worse than it is, I'm pretty sure. You have hospital food, which is a definite plus, and than maybe you get to meet new people, and spend some time recuperating, and, yeah, it'll be a blast!" He was trying to conceal his concern by beaming at the clone. "Oh, and, um, did they tell you much about your condition? I think you're fine, since you didn't take that much damage from the battle, so you should be up and running soon-"

"Misaka already knows." she interrupted his nervous rambling.

Visibly deflating, he stopped, and carefully decided how to continue this conversation.

"...Do you know how much time you have left?"

Crud. Even when he was carefully selecting his words he still sounded like boneheaded jerk for asking that insensitive question. For love of all things holy...

"They have predicted that Misaka would have few years left." She sounded so nonchalant, like she was stating how nice the weather outside was, instead of foretelling her untimely death. He now truly wondered if the emotional side-effect of Nerve-Wrecker 2000 was temporary, and now the clone locked her emotions within her once more. No one can quite possibly be _that_ calm about the prospect of their death.

"Are you fine with this?" Tachyon questioned. "Personally, I wouldn't be able to stand knowing when I'll die."

Perhaps now she thought that all the effort they went through had been in vain? He himself had many decades; she had couple of years. How did she even feel about this? Did she simply not care? Was she hiding her emotions?

"Misaka knows how much time Misaka has before dying. However, Misaka is still very much happy."

See, that he didn't understand. How could she still be happy after news like this?

As if sensing his inner question, she continued. "Misaka now has reason to live. Misaka now knows that someone will be mourning for Misaka when Misaka dies, that someone is willing to sacrifice themselves for Misaka's sake. Is that not enough reason to be content?"

He sat there, silently gazing at the clone with unfaltering eyes. In truth, he became speechless at her words, and was suddenly overcome with sense of... how should he describe this... Pleasure? Happiness? Heartwarming? Gratitude? Uplifting? Whatever it was, it came from the bottom of his heart, and slightly warmed up his face and his ears. Pushing out air from his nose, he turned his gaze to the ground with smile on his lips.

"Thanks... Imouto."

* * *

What should be her name? It's up to you, faithful reviewers! Tell me what her name should be in the reviews!


	8. Sleeping Dragon

2k hit!

* * *

Apparently, Touma had still not returned by 9 pm. This was evidently enough reason to be greatly concerned according to Index, as Touma was a type of person to break curfew not for personal leisure but to fight other hostile enemies. Index was ready to swear that Touma right now was fighting some unknown enemy for all the wrong reasons. And most likely, there was a damsel in distress involved.

Greatly frustrated for being detained like a crippled in a hospital, Tachyon began to fiddle around with the security systems of the building. In online hacking communities he was famous under the alias "와룡"(Wa-lyong), or Wulong, if one preferred the Chinese pronunciation. Literally meaning "Sleeping Dragon", this nickname was earned because while he was not involved with significant hacking events and were relatively in seclusion compared to his fellow hackers, his reputation as a genius at coding still grew overtime. He was not a malicious hacker by any means – perhaps that contributed to the lack of zeal by the authorities to properly detain him – but he was rather mischievous with his powers.  
Rather than hacking for profit or damage, he aimed more for mockery and aesthetic purposes, purely driven by his urge for adventure and the doped up feeling he gained while actually engaging in adventurous behavior. One can relate to the fact that when one does something exciting, their heartbeat went up, their blood flowed faster, their hands went cold. He drove for this feelings constantly; he turned to physical combat for endorphin and hacking for sheer thrill. He would do anything for such emotions to rush through his system.

Few hours of fiddling around with the hospital security gained him good access to majority of their systems. Contrary to what people saw within media, hacking was not an easy task; they must first gain the main access code that made up the system they were infiltrating. It was akin to accessing the wires and circuits within a physical machine, opening past the outside cover. Then one had to understand and decompile the original code in order to properly access them. Only then can one start to actually construct the code designed to invade the system, and don't even get him started on what purposes the code itself has to achieve, including covering up your tracks, trying not to trigger every single trap along the way, disguising itself in various ways not to raise flags, and et cetera.  
To an ordinary person the level of the coding system used in a professional hospital like this would take them days to complete above tasks with proper equipment. Only Tachyon's expertise allowed him to do this within mere hours on his Galaxy S3 (his blue Gekota phone he mainly used for calling purposes)... granted, it was a smartphone that was rooted and had additional applications installed, but still an impressive feat, nonetheless. And this was only if Tachyon merely relied on his professionally trained computer skills. If he also decided to use his powers while hacking, he would be able to take it to another level.  
Thank god for the swype function on Android, allowing him to type faster – otherwise it would have taken him three times as much time to code, as he would need to click those buttons one by one.  
All throughout the dark and silent night he hacked through the hospital records, practically trampling all the laws and regulations surrounding the privacy of those information. He had no intention of doing harmful to the hospital – he was just having some fun. Automatically did he already began to justify his actions while scrolling around, finding out that the patient at room CB143 had his appendix removed 3 hours ago... Patient in room BA045 had cardiopulmonary problems...

Eventually becoming bored with rifling through other patient's medical info, he decided to try his hand on infiltrating the security cameras around the city. Who knows? Maybe he'll catch some people doing funny stuff. He had already done the infiltration days earlier with the help from the clone, allowing him to watch some of the recorded surveillance.

Eyeing the previously deactivated security CCTV on the ceiling of the room (of course he was the one who disabled it – only amateurs would decide to hack into things without disabling any recording device that could potentially incriminate them. And besides, all he did was to cut off the power source, making it look like an accident. What? It happens _all the time_.), he contemplated on his choice of connection before deciding on wireless.  
Ah, the onion routing! One of his most favorite method of encryption! As the name suggested, it concealed the ongoing flow of information with layers upon layers of encryption. The circuit of information it was sent into had randomly selected checkpoints, where each checkpoint unraveled another layer of encryption one at a time. The final checkpoint would peel off the final encryption and deliver the information without ever revealing them, even if one decided to delve into the path the information went through. It was ingenious. Grinning ear to ear, he began to delve into the innermost parts of the Academy City, watching the streets at the night...

Only to find out that practically everyone was inside their homes because of the curfew. As the majority of the residents in Academy City was students, they all were inside, sleeping or awake.

Grumbling at the rather disappointing view, he decided to scroll through the previous records, weeks ago, months ago... He decided to try out the records from last Monday.  
Few people walking around... he fast forwarded... A truck with an interesting logo hauling some cargo... he fast forwarded... A child, crying on the streets over the dropped ice cream... He fast forwarded...

He was about to give up looking for interesting sights to see before spotting a large, gray truck parked near the ghetto area of the Academy City he dug up from few days ago. It had its back cover opened, and several teens, dressed in regular clothing was carrying something toward the truck... His mining pod! Upon closer inspection it was obvious; his own mining pod, complete with diamond bit drill and shiny titanium cover... Gritting his teeth in anger, he immediately began to analyze the teens carrying his precious vehicle.

One was a teenager with unruly blonde hair, mustard yellow jacket, blue jeans, brown shoes, and a nose piercing. Another teenager had black flat hair with brown shirt with blue trousers. The third teenager had a weird Mohawk, with overall a tacky outfit to match; ripped pants and a blue vest with white shirt. The fourth teenager had shaggy hair, with his red t-shirt and black shorts. Even with all four of them helping, they all struggled to carry the large and heavy piece of machine; apparently they were not able to enter inside the mining pod. Tachyon gave a proud smirk as he recalled his foolproof way of door activation - a particle scan of his signature tachyonic energy. Unless they decided to force their way in no one would be able to enter the machine itself.

If he was not confined within this hospital he would have tracked those four down within minutes and beaten them into pulp onto the surface the pavement. But he had no such luxury. Cursing to the high heavens at the thieves stealing his pod, he began to record the surveillance video from the beginning of the theft, taking care to jot down the license plate of the gray truck. Continuing the video he tracked the progress of the lorry driving through the area. Passing through the District 7, the vehicle parked itself within a run down building, and the garage door closed behind itself.

Well, that building won't stay in one piece for long – The moment he got out from his hospital he was going to demolish the entire structure to the point where a single brick won't be on top of another-

_knock knock knock_

"-Wha..." Tachyon muttered while staring at the door. Who was that? Couldn't be the nurses, as it was little bit over 10 o' clock...

"One minute." Tachyon called out to the door as he hurriedly hid all the evidence of his law breaking. Placing his equipment safely out of sight, he walked toward the door and opened.

It was the clone. Standing in front of him, she was for some reason dressed in her normal attire as opposed to wearing a hospital gown.

"Oh, hey Imouto." Tachyon greeted. "How's it going?"

"Misaka needs your assistance immediately." She went straight to the point. "Misaka has a theory that you can transport people over large distances. I need to be somewhere as soon as possible."

He couldn't fathom the reason for her sudden need for departure. "Well, um, uh... isn't this a bit late?"

"This mission is of the utmost importance." the clone replied. "Someone else is fighting against Accelerator for us."

...WHAT.

Seriously? Now?

"Okay, um, how do you exactly know this?" Tachyon stared at the clone, flabbergasted. "I mean, unless you received a call or something-"

"Misaka will explain once Misaka gets there. He needs our help immediately. He won't last long if we do not intervene." the clone monotonously replied.

Well, she was right – he himself didn't last over 30 minutes with that monster. "Mmm, how far do we have to go?"

"Misaka needs to be at the nearest unoccupied wind turbine."

...Wind turbine? He had no idea how standing near a wind turbine would help, but if she said so... Taking out his phone, he began to search for all the locations of the wind turbines within the city.  
...The nearest one to the hospital was several hundred miles away.

"Okay, here is the thing. If we are to go over long distances I need some time to map out the calculations. I'll need about 5 minutes of silence... You can sit over there for now." He gestured toward an extra chair as he sat down on the bed, closed his eyes, and began to concentrate.

Traveling through time he was comfortable with, as he did it more frequently, and it required less calculation than moving over large distances (funnily enough). Traveling through time was simple; he converted himself into tachyon particles and by going faster than the light he traveled to his past. This action was stationary; the particles moved around within the confined space dictated by himself, and transformed back. He did this numerous of times, and had a set of equations already memorized within his head, ready to be used at any time.

Selecting a specific geographical point to travel to, however, required a little bit more. Each different destination and starting points needed their own specific equation just to calculate the route. Light at vacuum would be able to cycle the earth approximately 7 and a half times within one second. Particles traveling faster than that even more so. It was not as simple as going from Point A to Point B; he needed to transform into tachyon particles, start from Point A, circle around the earth at least _over_ 7 and a half times, and arrive at Point B. Of course he could skip that extra step if he wished, but his control over the hyperactive particles would be very unstable, increasing his chances of self-obliteration through scattering of particles. By giving himself a breathing room of an extra second he would be able to greatly stabilize the transmigration. These calculations he needed to achieve was harder than brain surgery and rocket science combined; only his genius intellect allowed him to form and test and check all the calculation within his head in such a short time.

"...Done." Standing up, he grabbed the clone's hand tightly as he mentally prepared for the travel. "Brace yourself."

* * *

"-So," Tachyon said, "How did you know what was happening, exactly?"

They were standing next to a wind turbine. The clone was somehow spinning the blade with the electricity generated through her body, and he was right next to her, clad in his hospital green shirt and pants, looking very out of place. He still had no idea how spinning a wind turbine would help whoever was fighting Accelerator at this moment, but the clone's conviction held him there.

"All Misaka's are clones, and therefore we all share similar brainwave frequency patterns. Through this we can form a brainwave network, sharing our thoughts in quasi telepathic manner, and able to transfer information."

"-Okay, I'm at least 50% sure that brainwaves don't work that way... but I can't talk, since I am the one with ability to control hypothetical particles that travels faster than time." Tachyon began to visualize the large information network formed over thousands of brains together... No secrets were hidden, as every experience was shared all over the network... Which meant...

"So, they are aware of your continued existence? They know that you are alive, despite our apparent death?"

"Negative. Individual Misaka's can withhold information from the entire network. I am currently only receiving information from the network."

So secrets were able to be hidden by the individual members. Interesting. "So, how does spinning this turbine help?"

"Someone else is currently fighting Accelerator for our sake. In order to help him, we must disrupt the wind patterns to negate the attack made by his opponent." The blades of the turbines continuously rotated. All over the city where the wind turbines were, blades generated airflow, creating gale everywhere. Sparks of electricity escaped from the fueled motors.

"So, if they are fighting right now, whoever he is..." Tachyon pulled out his S3, and began to slide his fingers across the screen. "I can watch them in real time... ah, hacking, how I love you..." Tachyon muttered as he typed rapidly within his phone. "Let's see... oi, Imouto, do you know where they are fighting?"

"They are currently within the same place you and Accelerate fought before." she kept the answer short, concentrating on fueling the generator.

"The same switchyard, I see." Tachyon searched within the surveillance camera records, searching for the serial number of the recording device located within the cargo hold. Normally this process would take hours of careful program setup, but he already had made his preparations while being stuck within the hospital room. He only needed to copy the direct results of his work, tap into the security flow of digital videos... and, boom, now he had access to the records real time. Now all he needed to do was to find the correct camera... while searching, he briefly began to wonder the identity of the person courageous enough to take Accelerator head on. Was it some normal citizen, currently being toyed around by Accelerator, like a cat playing around with its food before swallowing?

TCG2UPA-MTFVVB2 – the serial number for the nearest camera to the cargo hold. Hijacking the control of the software, he wired the live footage the device was receiving directly onto his phone. Now, he shall see who was fighting against Accelerator... and it was...

"-KAMIJOU TOUMA?" Tachyon cried out in surprise as his grip on the phone tightened. "How the hell is he fighting Accelerator right now? I didn't even tell him the proper situation-!"

The clone glanced at Tacyon's direction at his sudden outburst, tilting her head in confusion. "Do you know the person fighting Accelerator?"

"Yeah, I met him before." Tachyon began to switch cameras, attempting to find the optimal view of the battle. "He is currently lying on the train tracks for some reason though... and... holy Dutch ovens! Is that a spirit bomb!?" Tachyon gasped at the digital screen. Accelerator was standing in front of unconscious Touma, his hands outstretched, a large white ball of energy being formed above him.

"Yeah, I'm calling bs on this one. Only people with pure heart can manipulate life energy around them to form the Spirit Bomb. There is no way he can do that..."

And than, something peculiar happened; the white swirl of energy above Accelerator slowly began to diminish over time, much to his surprise; soon there was nothing left.

"Mm, still confused as to what exactly happened. Did you guys do something? How would controlling the wind turbines affect his powers?" He looked over to the clone.

"Accelerator is currently generating plasma by controlling the wind direction and compressing the air into one spot," the clone explained, "If there is an even a slight disturbance within the wind, his control over the gases are affected."

Man, physics. How awesome was that? He had no idea someone could create plasma by compressing the air; outside of his particle physics related info he had little knowledge of other powers. In his defense, he doubted that there were any other people who could make purely mental, extremely complex calculations involving the major list of mechanics and theories the great thinkers of the past came up with.

One had to appreciate the power in numbers. All around the Academy City there was a clone assigned to a turbine, giving a boost to the battle to Touma's advantage. He observed her, as her hand stretched out toward the turbine, manipulating electricity to spin the blades of the wind turbine. Sparks danced around her body in a sort of hypnotic way as energy crackled around her.

"...Shokka." He muttered.

"Sorry, Misaka was unable to hear you." she seemed to place her full concentration on the turbine.

"Shokka." He repeated as she turned to face him. "Phonetic Japanese for Shocker. Sounds like a nice name, no?"

She stood there, silent, wondering where he was going with this.

"Yeah... Shokka. And it sounds feminine too, at least in western languages. I think I'll call you Shokka. What do you think of that name?" He grinned at her, expecting either her positive or negative response. "Opp, hold that thought," Tachyon held his hand up before the clone could reply. "Things are getting interesting..."

Much to everyone's surprise, Touma stood up once more. That guy just won't die, it seems. In slow steps he stalked toward Accelerator, who grinned in excitement at his slow approach. It was a shame really, the surveillance cameras didn't bother to record audio. Perhaps laser microphones were bit too much to place into every cameras, it seemed.

Accelerator burst forward, flying straight toward Kamijou. The latter ducked, and in several swift motions, he countered the former's desperate jab and punched the albino straight in the jaw. Accelerator made a foolish move, as flying toward him only added extra needed momentum to Touma's punch... if he stuck to ranged attacks it would have been all over.

"Touma, you magnificent bastard..." Tachyon had a broad grin on his face, engrossed within the digital display of his smartphone. "I READ YOUR LIGHT NOVEL!"

Kamijou really did deserve a new nickname, for this accomplishment... from now on, he will call him...

Tou-man.

* * *

Yes, that was a Patton reference.


	9. Korean Rage

Slowly becoming my love and joy, this fic is.

* * *

It took three days of overdrawn stay for Tachyon to be deemed "sufficiently healed". Heaven Canceller and the nurses attempted to persuade him to stay within the hospital for a bit more time, but Tachyon cited private personal reasons to get out of there as quickly as possible. The longer he delayed, the chances of his most valuable possession being mutilated grew larger. His nervousness reached its peak as he approached the very building the grey truck carrying his mining pod entered into.  
The large garage door itself refused to be budged by force. Kicking it didn't help either, as it only injured his already sensitive leg.

"How annoying..." he muttered, before conjuring up his tachyonsabre. Perhaps a good, solid whack would do the trick... placing all his weight upon the blade, he swung it like a flail toward the garage entrance.

_BANG._

Splinters flew everywhere as the blade collided with the door. Tiny spikes of wood burst from the opening, piercing the jacket Tachyon wore; they were stuck at the fabric itself, unable to penetrate past the clothing. He swung again, and once more. At this point the bottom part of the garage entrance was annihilated into pieces. With a sharp upward Taekwondo kick, he blasted the upper part of the door. The inside of the garage was now fully opened, and it revealed...!

Four teenagers playing poker on a table.

For a brief moment, all five of them were stunned at each other's unexpected entrance. The anticlimactic ending to his assault at the door surprised Tachyon, and the four teenagers who sat at the table were openly gaping at him. He did notice, however, that those four were the same people who stole his mining pod in the first place.  
Large numbers gave advantage to initiative, it seemed. All four of them stood up immediately, planning to charge at the unexpected assailant.

One verses four. Heck naw, he wasn't Chuck Norris. Only martial art he knew about that was exceptionally designed for fighting multiple opponents were Choy Li Fut, and he sadly was not yet proficient with that fighting style. The moment the four of them rose up from the table he whipped out a pistol from his jacket.

"SIT DOWN, SON!" he bellowed at them for extra comedic effect. All four of them froze at the sight of a weapon, and slowly sat back down at the table.  
"Alright, I'm going ask this only once." taking the full advantage of the psychological fear he was inflicting upon them at the moment, Tachyon began his interrogation. "Where the hell is my pod?"  
Perhaps it was because he spoke through his teeth, garbling his pronunciation. Perhaps it was because they had the barrel of his gun pointed toward them, and they were still trying to grip with their current predicament. Whatever the reason was, they did not answer his question, which only increased his wrath. Tachyon charged toward the poker table, blasting it into two pieces with his classic Taekwondo axe kick. Ignoring the other three thugs he pointed his weapon toward the one with the unruly blonde hair. In his comically flawed logic, Tachyon identified him as the ring leader purely because he had a ring piercing on his nose.

"WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU FROM!" Tachyon roared at him.

Still petrified from fear, he mustered up a single reply: "What?"

"'WHAT' IS NOT A COUNTRY!" Tachyon barked. "DO THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN 'WHAT'?"

At this point he looked positively terrified. "...What?" he replied in a small voice.

"ENGLISH MOTHER#%!$ & CAN YOU SPEAK IT!?" Tachyon was now red in the face, yelling his voice out.

"...We're speaking Japanese..." the one being interrogated was now very afraid for his life.

Tachyon took the cards he still was clutching in his hands and threw them on the ground. "DO YOU, UNDERSTAND, THE WORDS, THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!?"

"...Yes?" now he was having a near heart attack.

"THAN TELL ME WHERE MY POD IS!"

"...What?"

Becoming greatly frustrated, he shoved the barrel of his gun hard at the cheek of his victim. "SAY 'WHAT' AGAIN! COME ON, SAY 'WHAT' AGAIN! I DARE YOU, I DOUBLE DARE YOU MOTHER#%!$ &, SAY 'WHAT' ONE MORE GOD% #& TIME!"

If the one with the yellow hair was peeing on the spot, no one would have been surprised.

"...Nani...?" he weakly replied.

Tachyon hit the ceiling, experiencing aneurysm and conniption at the same time. Cocking his gun, he fired straight into the victim's face.

_BOOM._

A white, plastic ball flew from the barrel. It hit the face of the victim (who had his face cringed, his eyes shut tight) and bounced off, and fell to the ground.

Silence fell over the room.

"Eh-heh-heh-heh..." Tachyon chuckled nervously. Due to his sudden berserk rage he forgot the fact that he was holding a toy gun, rather than a real weapon. Why exactly a toy gun would emit a similar noise to a real weapon, he couldn't fathom.

"...What do you say we discuss this like rational beings?"

* * *

On the hindsight, it was a very foolish move, firing the gun into his face. If he was holding a real gun, his victim would have been killed. But thankfully he was not... one might say 'no harm no foul', but now he had to deal with four extremely angry people on his hands. Of course, he had his own powers, but that made it only a bit easier.

In a fraction of a second Tachyon had already calculated the situation of his battle. There were about 2,300,000 people within Academy City. 20% of them were unrelated workers, so that narrowed it down to 1,840,000. About 328,571 were actual espers, and the rest were all level 0's. Level 4's ranged around in mere thousands (he couldn't remember the number – such a stupid reason...), while there were only 7 level 5's. 2 of them he had actually met, so that narrowed it down to 5. In short, about 0.00027% chance that one of them were level 5, about 0.3% chance that some of them were level 4's, around 20% chance that they were levels 1 to 3, and about 80% chance that they were level 0's, ones with no power. If he kept his head cool he would be able to escape this situation unscathed.

The one with flat black hair lifted up a chair and bashed it onto Tachyon's back, forcing him to stumble. He conjured his sabre, smashing the next piece of furniture his opponent threw against him. The one with the Mohawk charged at him with a steel pipe, swinging it wildly toward him. Tachyon ducked, and the pipe contacted with the one with shaggy brown hair squarely within the face. The yellow hair barked some orders to his comrades that Tachyon tuned out while grabbing a leg of the desk that was broken in half.

It seemed that all four of them were level 0, unable to use any kind of power as they resorted to nearby object to attack him with. If they had carefully coordinated and initiated this attack, they would have a semblance of organization, able to take down even a great foe with numbers on their side. But it seemed that the element of surprise favored Tachyon in this situation. When multiple people suddenly attacked the same target at once without careful planning, they were bound to strike each other through chaotic and uncoordinated attacks, as they did not know each other's intentions. The alternate was to battle him one by one so that they would not interfere with each other's attacks, but the enormous advantage Tachyon's powers gave him on one verses one ruled out that possibility.

On the other hand if they were battling any other normal esper they would have been eventually overwhelmed due to the advantage in numbers. The level 0's turned to physical endurance in order to compensate for their lack of power, and had far more somatic power and stamina compared to actual espers. But Tachyon himself had gone into professional physical training, as his powers were not entirely suitable toward combat. His bodily conditioning was for situations such as these, and he often found himself in middle of the field of battle. Tachyon drew upon his martial art teachings in order to dodge, counter, and to grapple his opponents, while simultaneously sprinkling in some of his ability to give himself an edge. His primary goal was to make them attack themselves in confusion; he just came out from the hospital, and had neither the energy or stamina his normal self would have possessed. He needed to fight conservatively in order to avoid losing, or worse. Those four aimed to kill.

* * *

In the end, the destruction the battle caused was awe-inspiring. No furniture within the living room was spared, all of them used for weapons. Pieces and splinters of wood and glass and plastic were scattered all over the place, as if a huge earthquake had occurred. The ceiling fan was sprawled upon the floor, its wings broken. Televisions had their screens cracked, as if someone swung a bat against it. At some point foods themselves were introduced into combat, as the chili powders and other various condiments were peppered and sprayed all over the place. All in all a very messy scene. The four level 0's were tied up against the wall with great difficulty, their hands and feet bound tightly.

He himself was not unharmed, unfortunately. He had many bruises from his opponents striking him with various objects, and he was bleeding from multiple reopened wounds. At this rate he might even have to go back to the hospital again. One would even suspect that he was getting himself injured because he loved going to the hospital.

"Last week, my mining machine was stolen from its hiding place." Tachyon stalked around the room, his hands clasped behind him. The four victims tied up against the wall listened with fear. "I want to know where you placed it, and what you did with it." he spoke threateningly through his clenched teeth.

"What machine?" The one with the Mohawk piped up, much to the displeasure of other captives. "We steal a lot of gadgets, you know..."

"The one with the mining drill on front." Tachyon replied in a low voice.

"Oh that?" Mohawk continued; at this point his comrades were desperately shushing him, becoming fearful of their own lives. "We dissembled it."

Short silence fell as the news began to hit Tachyon straight in the face. At first, he merely stood silent. All four tied up victims stared frightfully at Tachyon, anticipating his wrathful reaction. At long last, he spoke.

"You..." he began with anger clearly visible within his voice. **"DESTROYED ITTTTTT!?"** he roared. Tachyon particles sprung from his pressure points on his body in frenzy, flying indiscriminately all over the place, some shattering glass windows and some bouncing off of the walls dangerously. Death metal music began to whine within the backdrop as the house itself shook from the vibrations. Blue lasers danced around the room as spacetime itself began to bend behind Tachyon as if he was some sort of sage. Blindingly blue lights began to shine from his eyes. If the colors themselves were golden instead of neon blue, one might have even suspected Tachyon of being a Time Lord, going through regeneration process. The four captives quivered in absolute terror, trying all their might not to be hit by the beams of destruction.

"**KOOOORRRREEEANNN RAAAGGGEE!** WHERE. IS. MY. MACHINE!" he now yelled at psychopathic level of fury, and the level of the destruction he was causing seemed to stay true to his words: not a single brick would lay on top of another at this rate.

And than, everything stopped. The music, the tremor, the lasers. Not because he wanted to, but at this point he was again coughing up blood, unable to keep up the required mental concentration. Slowly kneeling on the ground with one knee, he was visibly out of breath, having over exerted himself with his own powers. The victims slowly peeked out from debris like a group of frightened animals.

"I'm going ask for a last time." he slowly spoke. "Tell me where my machine is."

Trembling with fear, the one with shaggy yellow hair pointed his chin toward the door located on the far left. Standing up, Tachyon walked toward the door with stiff gait, preparing himself for what might lie beyond that entrance. Firmly grasping the handle he twisted it, and opened the door swiftly.

...No amount of time would have been enough for him to prepare himself for what he saw. His machine, his beautiful mining pod, was dissembled into tons of components, each individual circuitry and hardware scattered on the ground. It was as if the machine itself was shattered neatly into thousands of pieces.  
The victims thought that he would fly into rage all over again. But, on the contrary, Tachyon just stood there, silently absorbing the shocking image.

After some time, he sighed, his shoulders dropping.

"You know what? I'm not going to waste my energy." his voice was deadly, venom dripping off of his every word. He stooped down and picked up a piece of sharp hardware. "I'm just going to slit your throats and be done with this."

Facing the prospect of bloody death, the four captives flew into deep terror, as they began to sputter and stutter into flits of protests. Tachyon silently ignored while slowly stalking toward them with deadly killing intent.

"PLEASE! SPARE US!"

"SLI-SLI-SLI-SLIT!?"

"WE WILL NEVER BOTHER YOU AGAIN! PLEASE DON'T KILL US!"

Their cries for help rang all over the house, yet no one responded. They were in the middle of the ghetto territory of Academy City. Every man for himself.

"WAIT!" the one with the yellow hair desperately shouted. "WE'LL FIX YOUR MACHINE!"

Tachyon stopped at his words, entertaining the prospect. If he killed them now, he would have to immediately flee the scene, forced to leave his own machine within this house to be confiscated by others. If he took the risk of setting them free, and if they stood true to their words, it would save him unimaginable effort... hmm, what to do...  
Other captives nodded earnestly at their ringleader's words once they perceived that Tachyon was actually considering their offer. He himself still stood with his hands clutching the piece of hardware, contemplating his options.  
After a moment he began to walk toward them, still holding the sharp steel within his hand. He lifted up his weapon and struck the one with the yellow hair on his wrists. They all flinched with deep terror.

Ropes fell off of his hands in one neat slice. Yellow hair began to check his hands and wrists, as if to reassure himself that they were still intact. Once again Tachyon lifted up his weapon to slice the ropes tying the yellow hair's feet. Walking around he slowly freed all his captives, and one by one they gradually stood up, uncertain as to what they actually should do next. Mercy from their enemy was unexpected, it seemed.

All five of them stood in front of each other, unsure of their own actions at this point.

"If we are to actually fix this thing, we'd better do it quickly." Tachyon coldly stated. "Of course, you four will be doing the grunt work-"

At that point the three of them felt that the situation itself was safe enough for them to scram. In one instant they all fled, running for their dear lives. Outside of the house their hurried footsteps rang out as they ran from the Prince of Terror. Only the yellow haired one was left within the house, openly gaping at his compatriot's desertion. He trembled in front of now alert Tachyon, who scowled at him with red gleam within his eyes, tightly seizing the piece of steel within his hands.

Several seconds passed while the two people stared at each other, while the echoes of the footsteps of the traitors rang.

Strength suddenly disappearing within his body, Tachyon visibly deflated in exhaustion. Placing the piece of steel within his pockets, he turned around and slowly walked toward the door. The yellow hair stood on the spot, not believing his own fortune.

Sitting down on of the chairs within the room, Tachyon gazed at the scattered pieces of the machine before him.  
How was he going to fix this thing? The prospect by itself was frightening, but actually facing the monumental task he had to do totally killed his psyche. It was like facing a mountain of jigsaw puzzle, only 100 times more intricate and complex. He only had limited knowledge on machinery.

The yellow hair slowly tip toed into the room, silently lingering near the doorway. He was testing the waters, contemplating whether the coast was clear enough to venture inside.

"You better run too before I regain my energy." Tachyon spoke in lethargy. "I might reach lose my composure at some point. Believe me, my impatience literally exceeds the speed of light."

"...You'll need help fixing that thing." yellow began to speak. "I know how to operate machinery. You can't fix your machine alone."

Tachyon silently sat their with his hands folded, absorbing the words the yellow hair uttered.

"...I'm going to collect the pieces," Tachyon replied. "I'm not staying within this place longer than I have to. You can help if you want, but I would think you'd want to run, like others." grabbing the nearest plastic bag available, he began to scoop the scraps into the container. After few moments the yellow hair joined in with another bag within his hand.

"You are different from others. You are the chief among them, I assume." he held out his hand toward him. "My name is Tachyon. What is yours?"

After eyeing his hand warily, the yellow hair grasped it.

"Hamazura Shiage." he replied.


	10. Freaky Friday Flip

I made some new drawings for Tachyon on my deviantart page:

plasmaroar(period)deviantart(period)com(slash)art(slash)Tachyon-Art-490574637

Go check it out! Just replace (period) and (slash) with dots and slashes.

* * *

It was a quiet and empty within the Kamijou Household.

That sentence alone was strange enough, as the dormitory room itself housed 3 times more occupant than it was initially designed for. It was rather surprising how other rooms adjacent to them had not reported them for excessive noise at this point.

And now, two permanent occupants of this dorm room was off for a holiday.

Kamijou Touma, on the insistence of other higher ups, went off to a brief retreat in order to escape the steady chaos growing within the Academy City. The fall of the number one dismantled the entire food chain of power within the city, like a jenga blocks falling rapidly after one wrong move. The basic mentality of the dark side of the city was: defeat the one who defeated the strongest, and that would place them above Accelerator.

It was a flawed logic, really. The match between Tou-man and Accelerator was like a game of rock paper scissor. They were simply incompatible; it was not as simple as "who defeated who", but they didn't care. And unfortunately he was stuck within this dangerous household, bored out of his mind. Apparently they did not think it was necessary to inform the _third_ occupant of the house of their opportunity for a beach resort. All he found when he got home was a sticky note stuck on the fridge, informing him of their reason for absence.

_Sigh..._

Things would have been more exciting if Tachyon dared to use the electrical utilities around the house, but he was not idiotic enough to attempt that. The whole point of Touma and Index retreating the Academy City was to avoid trouble from other espers, and even turning on a simple light would totally defeat the purpose, as it would inform others that _someone_ resided within the house, and launch attacks accordingly. He didn't even dare to use the gas too much, lest his throat got slit within his sleep.

He thought of drawing the curtains completely and use some electrical appliances during the daytime in order to avoid exposing himself, but that was the last resort before he went insane from the lack of activity. Seriously, why was he receiving the full brunt of this unfortunate development? Perhaps this apartment received some dosage of misfortune from Kamijou Touma? That was how Japanese urban myths worked, was it not? If he had to kill an assassin while sleeping within this house he was definitely going to blame Touma for the mess.

* * *

Uiharu was angry.

Well, angry was too insufficient of a word. A better adjective would have been 'furious', or 'enraged', or even 'incensed'.

"OLLERUS!" she yelled at the top of her voice. "WHAT THE % !# IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?"

Sounds of object crashing in the distance was heard. Within seconds Kakine rushed into the room, wearing for some inexplicable reason a bucket on his head.

"Ah, that," Kakine nervously scratched his head in response. "Well, they had nowhere else to go, and they were being neglected by the zoo owners, so um, I had to bring them here. Sorry?..."

Their entire apartment was not littered by land animals, as one might deduce from his explanation. The entire room was filled with... sea otters.

"Sea otters! They are everywhere!"

They were all piled up over one another in their previously clean room. Their fur glistening with sea water, the floor covered in shiny sand. There even were some clams scattered here and there for some unexplainable reason. The beady eyed, ninety pound sand bags loitered around the room peacefully, expecting fish sooner or later from their new masters.

Uhiaru sighed while massaging her temples. How in the world would she explain this situation to the landlord? And why was she living with an idiot like him in the first place?

"You have 30 minutes to clean this mess up. Throw the otters out, for all I care." Uiharu flatly replied as she walked out from the room. She had a mild headache, and was not about to waste her energy punishing this moron.

"But, that's too cruel!" Kakine protested. "They have nowhere else to go! Don't tell me you are someone's animal-hating mother!?"

"Either you get them out of here or I get them out of here, using a far harsher method."

"Silvia-hime, you can't just dump them within the nearby water! The temperature is far too warm for them! Their bodies were made to be living within colder waters!" Now, Kakine had zero knowledge on the habitats of water animals, and consequently he was pulling this 'fact' out of thin air. He was rather hoping that Uiharu would not know anything about aquatic creatures either.

"Well, they can all die for I care. This room is covered with sand and salt. If everything is not cleaned by the end of the hour I will be angry." Uiharu slammed the door shut on her way out, leaving a dismayed Kakine within the room full of sea otters.

* * *

_Ring-ting-aling-ting-aling-ting-aling-ting-aling..._

Rather a rude awakening, Tachyon observed as he was woke up unceremoniously by the racket his alarm clock had made. The curtains were drawn, and as result his gauge of how early it was were a bit skewed. Getting out from the comfortable futon was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had already risked enough of his life by sleeping during the night when he should have been awake, keeping watch. The earlier he rose from the bed the more ready he would be against any kind of adversary he might encounter.

But irrationally, he soon went back to his peaceful slumber, unable to resist the hazy temptation of drowsiness drawing him closer to unconsciousness...

_RING-TING-ALING-TING-ALING-TING-ALING-_

Cursing in colorful languages in Korean, he pulled out his pistol from his pillow (he was _that_ paranoid) and fired it toward the alarm clock.

_BANG._

The alarm clock toppled over, its cries miraculously ceasing at once. Yawning, he dragged himself out from the bed, readying himself for the new day... after all, no rest for the wicked. Stumbling toward the kitchen he opened the fridge, hoping that Touma bought something nice with the huge wealth Tachyon lent him for rent.

Ah... black honey pudding. Pouring himself a glass of milk he walked back toward the living room and plopped himself down behind the table. Upon the notification beep of his Gekota phone he began to check the device, realizing that he had missed several calls while sleeping. He redialed the number, and began to wait.

...

"어, 너 나한테 전화했어?" Tachyon inquired into the phone.

...

"음, 지금은 어떤 학원 도시 학생의 집에 잠시 머물고 있어. 왜?"

...

"뭐? 파괴됐다고?"

...

"엄청난 소식이군. 어떻게 일어났는지 알아?"

...

"레이저!? 어떤 레이저가 그런 짓을 할 수 있어?"

...

"음, 그래서 나더러 남은 조각들을 훔쳐오라... 정보는 나중에 줄 거지?"

...

"...알아서. 상황을 좀 살펴볼 개. 안녕."

Flipping the phone shut, he briefly went into a deep reverie.

Tree Diagram.

The best supercomputer world had ever seen – it was a wet dream of any computer enthusiast to play around on that machine. And it was destroyed. Somehow. Was he relieved that a nation other than South Korea was stripped away that valuable piece of equipment? Or was he disappointed that such a machine was destroyed in the first place? At any rate, many countries were scrambling right now to launch space rockets in order to retrieve the leftover debris – yes, even the stuff left over from the explosion was exponentially more valuable than their own equipment. It was that powerful. And he was given the mission to purloin the pieces Academy City had most likely had already retrieved, the most valuable of the bunch. At times like this he felt like he was back at his home country, taking on Special Missions assigned to him by the government.

Standing up, Tachyon strolled toward the closet. If he was going to successfully fulfill this task, he would have to do some legwork. Some snooping around, to see the general public's reaction to this event, or their lack of. Opening the wooden cover he peered inside, hoping to find something cool. He always did things in style, his fashion sense taking the top priority.

"Ooooh..." Tachyon was instantly attracted to one of the scarves within the cabinet. It was long, had black and red stripe pattern, and as a bonus it had the texture he liked; none of those furry, stuffy fabric types. Snickering, he snatched it out from the closet – hopefully, Touma won't miss this item too much... it wasn't too much to ask for compared to his black card, after all.

* * *

Now, the average temperature of the Academy City at this time of the year was around 86 Fahrenheit, which explained why Tachyon attracted weird looks from people, as he was wearing a full trench coat and scarf during a normal weather. In his defense, he looked skinny, and therefore more susceptible to the cold – in reality, he was trained to handle harsh conditions. Including sweating inside his trenchcoat. All for the name of fashion.

He snooped around within the alleyways, checking around within the surrounding areas. He couldn't afford to lose any kind of development regarding the Tree Diagram. If others realized its importance as much as he did (and they did), the surrounding factions would immediately send agents in order to intercept such packages. Understandably, the weather news handled by the Tree Diagram was now flawed, as it lacked the ability to calculate the movements of all particles within the atmosphere. People would notice that sooner or later, as they relied on the weather prediction heavily. Even still, they must of had some sort of grace period, due to the computer predicting the weather for the entire month at one go.

The gigantic plasma HD screen on the tall building nearby caught Tachyon's attention. It was currently displaying a news channel, reporting events around the soon to come 2012 reelection of the President of the United States that would take place in November. The two candidates for election, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, were locked within a debate surrounding the issues of the country.

However, rather than showing the candidates themselves, another entirely different people were participating within the argument. One was for some reason the actor that was in the Matrix... what was his name, Keanu? Kenue? And his opponent within the debate was that protagonist within the Rush Hour series... what was his name, Chris Carter? Tucker? Well, whatever. Tachyon scratched his head in confusion as he began to suspect the news channel to be a some sort of parody... also, the secret service agents surrounding the debate room had some irregularities. Instead of being tall burly bodyguards, some of them were a little girl, another a teenager who barley looked over 18. What was going on here?

Looking around, Tachyon again noticed further weird situations surrounding the people. The regular store owners for some reason were replaced by students. A child was pushing around a baby carriage, occupied by a full grown adult. How did he not notice this phenomenon while he was walking around? Everything was backwards! Slightly entering into panic mode Tachyon began to fanatically tear into the streets, checking out the surroundings to make sure he wasn't insane. The usual judgment members that took care of the sidewalks around the city were replaced by hardened criminals he previously saw within the ghetto part of the districts. Within his own phone the Wikipedia articles were all messed up, the pictures for each individual people scrambled to the point of ridiculousness. This was way too elaborate for some sort of a prank... Tachyon looked around the place despondently, pinching himself to see if this was a gigantic nightmare he experienced from time to time. What the hell was going on?

* * *

"UI-HA-RU!" Etzali yelled as he flipped his best friend's skirt high into the air, showing his underwear for all people to see.

"KIIYYYYAAAA!" Kihara Gensei shrieked as he desperately attempted to hold his skirt down.

"Eh, strawberry with white background? Really Uhiaru?" Etzali quested his friend's taste in lingerie.

"Saten-san!" Gensei protested in a weak voice. "Don't do that out in the public!"

"Gomen, gomen.~" Etzali held his hands out in apologetic motion. "But I just wanted to see what my friend was wearing today!"

"You don't have to show it to other people too, and you know that!"

* * *

Everything, from books to all forms of media, had people with absolutely different appearances posing as someone else. It was truly terrifying, when the entire world went mad and you were the only one who knew this horrific error.

Sitting down and thinking situations logically was his forte, so he did exactly that. For whatever reason, apparently every single people within the world had their appearances switched to another. Why? How? Who had enough power to be able to scramble the bodies of 7 Billion people living on the earth? Very few candidates qualified for this position. And there also was the question why he apparently was the only one seemingly unaffected by this event. Well, he did consider himself rather unusual compared to others... but this was just simply flat out insane!

Who should he contact in order to discuss this huge change? Everyone else was blissfully unaware of the chaotic situation they were within, so proper authorities would have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Flipping his phone open, he uselessly scrolled around within his contacts, fully knowing that it was futile...

Until he came across Touma's number.

Wait, logically, his Imagine Breaker would probably have negated whatever change that came upon the world... quickly, he pressed the dial button, and placed the phone near his ear, desperately wishing that Touma would pick it up...

* * *

"Ah, hey, Touma..." Tachyon chuckled nervously as he called him. "...Notice anything strange, as of late?"

"Ah, Tachyon." Touma replied in a surprised tone. "Yeah, everything seems fine over here. Did anything happen while we were gone?"

"Well, you sure you don't notice anything weird?" Tachyon replied in an uncertain tone. "Like, everybody's appearance flipped for instance...?" he really was gambling by making this statement. He still was unsure whether Touma was unaffected by the switch.

"Eh? Tachyon, you noticed something happening?" Touma replied. "Yeah, everybody's appearance was changed, and it's really eerie."

"Ah, thank god you weren't affected." Tachyon sighed in relief. "Anyway, I have no idea what is going on. How come no one else noticed this?"

"Well, I talked to some magicians from Necessarius. You know who they are, right?" Touma replied. "Apparently there is a magician who did this to the entire earth's population."

"Seriously? I can only think of very few people with enough magical power to do this." Tachyon replied, incredulous. "So only you and I and those magicians from Necessarius are the only ones unaffected?"

"According to one of them certain people who had some sort of magical protection of special buildings were unaffected by this spell, and if a magician noticed a change occurring throughout the earth they could have set up a counter spell in order to prevent this from happening to them. By the way, Tachyon, you should have been affected by this curse like everyone else. How did you escape the effects?"

He was right. He should have had his appearance unknowingly changed like everybody else. But for some reason that did not happen.

"Well, isn't that the question of the day." Tachyon dryly replied. If he was to hazard a guess, it would be because of the irregularities within his own body. "So, I guess we should do something about this entire mess." Tachyon continued into the phone. "Hopefully this won't last forever... right?" If the caster of the spell died, than naturally the effects of the spell itself should wear off presently. Now, as to why exactly the castor him or herself felt the need to switch everybody's appearance was still unknown. This was too much for a prank or a joke.

"Either we have to defeat the spellcaster who did this, or to destroy the ritual center. Than the spell itself would disappear." Touma replied. "At least, that's what they told me."

"Did they also tell you the intentions the caster has in mind for doing all this?"

"I didn't understand the most of the explanation they gave me, but the basic gist is that whoever did this, they did it to take the original position of an angel."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on. What 'angel'?"

"Ah, I forgot to tell you. The switching of appearances is apparently just a side effect. The spell itself is called Angel Fall, and its main purpose is to drag an angel down to the earth, somehow, and to either control it or to take it's place. I don't completely understand it either. It has to do with Kabbalah and Tree of Life and all that confusing stuff."

"Well, this entire situation is very convoluted." Tachyon complained. "It's almost like the author of this story decided to write a Freaky Friday Flip story while forcefully shoving religious aspects into the plot. A good example of a poor writing..." Tachyon clicked his tongue impatiently. "I don't think I can do much from here, but if you need any help, you can call me, just in case."

* * *

"Ah, how careless of me! I accidentally dropped my ribbon into Onee-sama's shower!"

The bathrooms of the Tokiwadai Middle School were filled with girls starting out the day with a fresh cleansing of bodies. 'Accidentally' sending the fabric fluttering into the next cell, Tatemiya attempted to reach into the stall where Amata was washing himself.

"KUROKO!" Amata thundered while kicking the ribbon, sending it flying back to where it came from. "Don't even think about coming in here!"

"Ah, Onee-sama is too cruel!" Tatemiya moaned in protest. "But... that's what I love about Onee-sama." he licked his lips seductively.

Amata shuddered as he endured the insanity emanating from his crazy roommate. "Kuroko... BAKA HENTAI!"

* * *

...Yeah, I don't even know.

This chapter itself is largely inspired by others. The scene with otters is a tribute to Pidge-san, who wrote "EdAches", a very humorous story in YGO GX fandom. Hikari Sword's "A Normal Day" convinced me to write my own version of a crack story.

This chapter is mainly a filler... hopefully I would have something a bit more substantial for the next one. Please review!

Edit: Nov/6/14 - Some Korean grammatical errors fixed.


	11. The Lost Handbag

3k hit! These milestones come quicker and quicker! :)

* * *

Tachyon disliked Shirai Kuroko.

She was rude, she was callous, she was (quite fittingly) judgmental, she was pompous, she had this weird speaking mannerism that drove him crazy, and most importantly, this god**** author was trying to fill up the word count quota by placing 'she was' in front of every single comma! Absolutely outrageous.

Tachyon was currently situated in front of the dark alleyways within the city, being forced to find an object that he didn't even know what it looked like. How did it come down to this?

* * *

_Earlier that day..._

"It's not 'I door the open', its 'I opened the door'. English is SVO, unlike Japanese, which is SOV."

"Gaah, why does English have to be this confusing...!"

It was 7'o clock in the morning. The unfortunate student and his roommate was currently sitting outside on a public lunch table. Tachyon was comfortably sipping on his milkshake, while Touma was currently locked within a struggle against his arch enemy: schoolwork. Yes, the monster who faced against a Saint, Electromaster, Ars Magna, and much more, was useless against his most formidable adversary.

"It's not 'alot', its 'a lot'." Tachyon made some markings on Touma's paper. "Also, the word 'definitely' is misspelled often, so watch out for that."

It was August 31st, the last day of summer vacation before the second semester began. Students around the district were currently divided into two categories: those who were frantically finishing their work, or those who wished to relax before the school began. Tou-man belonged with the former, much to his chagrin.

"Unless you had your memory magically erased sometime this summer," Tachyon sighed, "there is no way you just simply 'forgot' about your work up until today."

"Eh-heh-heh-heh..." Touma nervously chuckled as he continued on with his work – little did Tachyon know, that was _exactly_ what happened. And he couldn't let anybody else know about that little fact. Such misfortune...

"But I will say one thing; Korea certainly didn't give this much homework during summer breaks. This is almost ridiculous. Is this a thing within Academy City?" Tachyon began to examine the workbooks with a stern look. "I would be almost too lazy to do all these..."

As Touma began to weep comically in exhaustion over his school work, Tachyon began to languidly check over the status of online forums within his phone. Nothing major seemed to be going on, despite the reports of increased security surveillance submitted by other fellow hackers on the webpage... sighing in boredom, Tachyon slipped his phone back within his pockets.

"Ahh, I can't take this!" Touma stood up, gripping his head with his hands. "I'm going for a walk to see if any of my friends are willing to help me on this... such, such misfortune!"

"Good idea." Tachyon leaned back. "Not like you will finish your work at any time soon, at any rate."

His spirit crushed by Tachyon's merciless prediction, Touma slouched away from the table.

"You guys are a bit slow, you know?" Tachyon quietly muttered, having been looking all over online for any signs of space related activities. "At the speed you are moving at, someone else might take the remaining debris..."

* * *

"That Uiharu..." Kuroko complained while flipping through the Judgment records, "Assigning me all this hard work of tracking information down. How tedious."

As a Judgment worker, Shirai Kuroko had the responsibility of doing any physical investigation they needed to do. And that sometimes included finding and hunting down criminals. Unfortunately, today was a slow day, and only she was left to do the legwork.

Well, until she spotted him leisurely sitting on a table outside a shop, anyway.

A devious idea popping into her mind, she quickly walked toward him, grabbing something within her bag.

"There you are!" she cried out, approaching him. "I've been looking for you. Here." on the table, she placed a Judgment armband.

Tachyon turned around the moment he heard her, and became a bit confused at this sudden development.

_Hmm, she looks familiar... but when did I see her?_

"...Ah, you are that bird from Judgment, or whatever." Tachyon finally recognized her after few moments. He looked down toward the armband. "...What is this?"

"Your honorary Judgment armband. With this, you will temporarily be able to do Judgment work officially." Kuroko gave a smirk. "So, get to work~."

"What am I, your slave?" Tachyon snorted. "I have more important things to do than to clean up trash on the streets, either literary or figuratively."

"Ah, but you still have illegal status within this City!" Kuroko began to giggle evilly while her hair began to obscure her eyes. "You better help me with this, or else!"

"...Seriously?" using his high level intellect – which was enough to do calculations for each and every individual faster-than-light traveling particles on the fly using pre-memorized particle motion equations – Tachyon desperately tried to find a way out of doing grunt work for the Judgment, but unfortunately, while the solutions he came up with would solve his immediate problems, there still was the issue with his illegal residence.

"...Tch," Tachyon mumbled as he rose up from the table, veins popping on his head. "Fine, what shall I do for my ouju-sama?" Tachyon spoke sarcastically. "Clean the streets? Roll out the red carpet? Carry you around?"

"Well, that won't be necessary. A citizen reported a missing lady handbag, and is quite anxious to get it back. Your current job is to search through the streets of the Academy City to find and retrieve this missing item. These are the description of the item in question." Shirai held out the paper from her pockets.

"Really now, is this what I've become? Being a lost item retriever for god knows who?" grumbling, Tachyon snatched the paper out from her hands after taking the Judgment Armband.

"Once you find the item report to the Judgement district of 117 branch."

"Yeah yeah," Tachyon waved the details aside. "Don't get me wrong, if I don't find this item soon, I won't bother spelunking for it."

* * *

...And the rest is history.

Really, how low did he fall? Here he was, being forced to look for an unimportant macguffin because a middle schooler loli lesbian psycho yandere was blackmailing him.

Mumbling indiscernibly in Korean, Tachyon was looking over the broken down parts of the city carelessly, trying to devise a way for him to get out of this mess with the least amount of difficulty.

And then, he noticed something.

Within one of the buildings, through the window one would be able to see a silhouette of a man lying down within a room. Normally, Tachyon would brush off this detail, but the said building was completely deserted and derelict. Unless he was a hobo, there was no reason anyone would be within this building.

Intrigued, Tachyon ventured within. While breaking down the door with some swift kicks, he seriously hoped that he had a good reason for breaking and entering, and at the same time, he seriously hoped that nothing was wrong, either.

An unexpected scene was before him. A young man, with dark brown hair, with expensive looking clothing lay on the ground before him, gagged and blindfolded, his hands and feet tied.

He had this certain regal look, someone who looked like a portrait that came to life; looking cool and elegant. he exuded the sense of aristocracy, and Tachyon would not have been surprised if he was related to influential people within the Academy City.

But, there was one glaring aspect within this picture that drowned out every other details. On his right arm, it looked as though someone tore off his skin very neatly, from elbow down to the palm, although the fingers themselves were spared. It was a very ugly sight.

After standing there stunned for several seconds Tachyon hurried to the lying body. Forming a small dagger with tachyon particles he began to slice off the bindings; within seconds he was gently lifting him up, checking him for signs of life.

No pulse. He was most likely dead. Grimacing, he gently placed the lifeless body back on the ground. Who had done this? Was ripping off a part of one's skin enough to kill them? What should he do next?

But right then and there something miraculous happened.

Almost as if someone breathed life right back into the corpse, as if someone changed filters within a camera, the entire color of the body slowly changed. The skin tone of the young man lying before him was restored from being cold gray into a healthy shade of peach. Tachyon stood there, shocked at this transformation.

The figure lying on the ground slowly lifted himself off the ground, opening his eyes to check his surroundings.

"I have to hurry!"

In a stark contrast to a lifeless carcass that he was before, the victim jumped into action.

"I need to tell her about the danger! No time to explain!"

He ran past the gobsmacked Tachyon, right back outside the abandoned building. Footsteps echoed outside as he madly dashed toward a random direction. Tachyon, sensing urgency in his words quickly followed.

"Oi!" Tachyon yelled out while catching up with him, "Who is in danger?"

"Someone is looking to hurt Misaka-san!" the victim yelled back, becoming more agitated by the second, "I have to go warn her!"

Surely he can't be serious.

"You know, you have a gigantic open wound on your arm!" Tachyon protested. "And with all this breeze from running, it must feel painful! She can handle herself! Get yourself to a hospital first!"

"By than it will be too late! This guy is dangerous!" ignoring his advice, the wounded teen kept on dashing around, searching for the electromaster.

"Che..." clicking his tongue, Tachyon pulled out his Gekota Phone while taking care not to trip in process. Having the emergency number in his quick dial... this was embarrassing.

"Hello, ambulance?" Tachyon inquired into the phone, "We need immediate medical treatment here..."

* * *

It was nighttime.

It was a refreshing change, being at the hospital as a visitor instead of as a patient. He was waiting outside the treatment room, awaiting the news of the flayed victim.

He had made some acquaintances during his prior visits to the hospital – people traveled across the hallway, some waving at him, and receiving a wave in return.

The door to the emergency room opened, and out came Heaven Canceller. Standing up, Tachyon walked up to the doctor, expecting some update.

"He is fine, and there won't be any lasting damage." he shuffled some papers within his hands. "Although, this is one of more stranger cases I have seen. The patient have told us that he was kidnapped a week ago, and held within an abandoned building since. However, his wounds are fresh."

Tachyon frowned as he processed this information.

"It seems as though this patient has the ability to petrify every single particle within his body in order to enter some form of stasis. He was unable to move, but no further damage was able to be dealt to him." Heaven Canceller looked behind Tachyon. "Ah, Unabara-san. I have been expecting you."

Tachyon turned around to see an elderly lady walking toward them. She was dressed well in expensive looking cloths, and had an air of austere dignity. Not unlike the feeling he received while observing the victim.

"Heaven Canceller-san," the old lady walked up to them, "How is my grandson? Is he hurt? What had happened?"

"He has suffered no lasting damage, and will be perfectly fine after some rest. This is the young man who rescued your grandchild." Heaven Canceller gently pushed Tachyon toward her.

"So you are the one who found my Unabara!" the old lady bowed, and Tachyon bowed awkwardly in return. "How can I ever express my gratitude?"

"Ah, well, I was too slow, really," Tachyon desperately tried to imitate typical shounen manga hero modesty. "I should have found him sooner, to be honest."

"Nonsense!" the grandmother replied. "Being rescued is many times better than being lost. Why, if you were a girl instead of a boy, I would have full-heartedly recommended you for the Tokiwadai Middle School!"

Sensing the topic slowly crawling toward a weird territory, Tachyon changed the subject. "Ah, well, most of the credit goes to your son. After all, he was the one who managed cleverly to enter himself into cryogenic stasis using his own abilities, making it so that he would receive zero damage! Even I wouldn't have been able to think of that one."

Heaven Canceller silently remarked the way Tachyon simultaneous complimented the victim, humbled himself, and somehow yet elevated himself within the terms of intelligence.

* * *

Unabara Mitsuki.

He was the grandson of the director of the Tokiwadai Middle School. Pretty privileged fellow, with level 4 power to boot.

Tachyon was sitting within a chair, located directly next to the patient's bed. His hands behind his head, he was stretched back, relaxing.

"That ability of yours, it is very fascinating. How did you pull yourself out from the stasis?" Tachyon took a swig from the cup of water nearby.

"When I petrified cells within my body, I left the brain part intact." Mitsuki replied. "So, whenever I wished to, I would be able to unfreeze myself. But I was still tied and gagged, unable to do anything to pull myself free, until you came along."

"Clever..." Tachyon mumbled, while toying with his phone. "I could use some help from a person like you. Say, how about you join my group?"

Mitsuki shifted his position within the bed to face Tachyon. "Group?" he echoed, giving a questioning look.

"Group." Tachyon repeated. "I didn't exactly think of a name yet, but it will be a group of, say, superheroes." he shrugged. "I'm trying to gather multiple ability users and form them into a special response team; earth's mightiest heroes, or something like that. Still working on the general concept." pulling out an index card from his inner coat pocket, he scribbled some notes using his mechanical pencil. "Think about it and call me back. Once I gather adequate people, we will begin." Standing up, Tachyon approached the door. "For now just rest. It's still in beginning phase, at any rate."

* * *

He pretty much had a good idea of the identity of the person who attacked Unabara. For ten minutes he went into a deep thought, intensely trying to logically decide the phone number he needed to use.

Dialing a certain number into his device, Tachyon held it near his head, waiting.

"..."

"Etzali." Tachyon talked into the phone.

"Who is this?" a confused voice replied.

"Try to guess." Tachyon smirked. "I am the same person who infiltrated your organization's oh so fortified Templo Mayor, back in, what, December few years ago, I believe?"

"Ah," recognition entered into his tone, as well as some suspicion and bitterness. "It's you."

"Me," Tachyon lightly replied. "Really, what were you thinking, going waist deep into the Academy City? I thought the whole point of camouflaging as someone else involved actually disposing the victim properly - not that I would want anyone to die that painfully – but you didn't even manage to do that right. Have you been slacking off? The Return of the Winged One does not take failures kindly."

The voice on the other side of the line was briefly silent.

"I was originally sent to the Academy City to measure the growing power of the Kamijou Faction, and if they proved to be dangerous, to dispose of them. After a month of surveillance, I have observed the faction gathering very powerful allies from both spectrum, including you, who created a tornado of fear within the Magic Side by entering the Academy City. But I failed to assassinate Kamijou Touma."

"Not with that halfhearted effort, you won't." Tachyon replied. "Really, whats with you? You could have been way more effective with your infiltration had you actually thought carefully about this mission. Your obsidian dagger, or should I say, SCP-034 should have been given you an edge over your battle with Kamijou. Don't tell me it got destroyed?"

The magician did not reply.

"I'll take that as a yes." Tachyon continued. "But, why are you telling me all this top secret classified mission information in the first place?"

It seemed as though the voice on the other side of the line was contemplating on his choice of words.

"I have defected from the Return of the Winged One." he replied.

Stunned, Tachyon fell silent.

Thinking logically, he began to slowly connect the pieces.

Instead of picking a far more suitable victim, he purposely chose someone with high level esper ability.

Instead of immediately disposing of his victim in order to fully eliminate the possibility of them being discovered, he merely locked his victim up within an abandoned building when faced with no other choice.

The victim himself cared more about the safety of Misaka Mikoto rather than himself for some reason. That logically meant that the attacker himself displayed actions that would point toward that conclusion...

"Heh-heh-heh..." Tachyon began to chuckle in a low voice. "HahahahaHAHAHAHA! Man, this is funny as hell! Hahahaha!"

Tachyon laughter rang out loud within the red sky.

"What is so amusing about this?" anger began to seep into the words of the Aztec magician.

"What is this, shounen manga?" Tachyon clutched his stomach. "Betraying the organization you dedicated your entire life for a silly crush? Someone who you have very little chance with, especially with someone else on her side? This, this is the reason why you don't entrust missions to teenagers with hormonal issues. Human emotions rules us all in the end, it seems."

"A cold villain like you wouldn't understand!" the voice on the other side roared. "Because the Kamijou Faction proved to be too dangerous, I had to give up on my dreams and attack the world I came to love! Someone like you, who ruins the lives of those around him, would not be able to understand how I feel!"

"Cool your jets," Tachyon interrupted him. "You judge me too harshly. I only eliminated those who threatened my existence, and believe me, many have tried to kill me since my birth for the arbitrary reason of destroying anyone with powers similar to what I have. Otherwise, I have stayed pretty neutral. As for your teenage angst, didn't you fail your mission? Didn't you defect from your organization? Is this not your chance?"

Etzali stayed silent.

"Misaka Mikoto..." Tachyon snickered. "Yeah, I get what you mean. She's pretty cute. She is, how should I say this, charming." he smiled. "You like Academy City? Well guess what, I have taken a liking to this city also. I guess this makes our relationship mutualistic, in a way?"

"Are you suggesting an alliance?"

"Not really." Tachyon replied. "But, when the situation calls for it, you help me protect this city, and I will help in return. Think about that. In the meanwhile, try not to be too conspicuous. This city is blissfully unaware of magic, and you will want things to stay that way. Oh, and one more thing - no one finds the prospect of getting their skins flayed out amusing."

Chuckling at his own dry humor, Tachyon flipped the phone shut. Stretching, he headed back toward the buildings.

It wasn't a total loss, the time he spent trying to find the handbag. Maybe he'll actually try to retrieve it.


	12. SSSAGFC

Profile updated!

* * *

Within the 7th School District of the city, one could see a tall, white building, which stood out conspicuously compared to other surrounding structures. It had no windows, no doors, or any kind of opening, essentially making it impossible for one to simply walk within. And within, there was a room, and within, there was a cylinder, and within, there was a man.

Well, no one really knew this person's gender; this person could pose as a woman and no one would bat an eye in response. He was the puppet master of the Academy City, the true controller. All others were just pawns for his plans, no more. And this man at this moment was especially focused at one specific individual.

All across the large room numerous screens independent of physical monitors were scattered, each showing a different picture. This man was too much of a genius just to be relying on surveillance cameras and satellites.

This man was Aleister Crowley. Was that his real name? God knows.

Every screen, save except a few for overall surveillance, focused on one teenager, engaged in various activities. Battling Magicians with glowing blue sword, battling the Number One, battling the Skill-Out... the list went on.

Normally, if anyone outside of Academy City breached them, they would be quickly and quietly taken care of. However, in the context of the situation it was fortuitous, this esper entering this city at this critical stage. While he was not truly essential to Imaginary Number District nor Fuse=KAZAKIRI, his mere presence within the City practically doubled, no, tripled Aleister's options. Truly, despite lacking in combat capabilities compared to Level 5's, this teen's powers potentially made anything possible, or it would be if he was stronger.

What even was his level? In Aleister's opinion, his powers went beyond the concept of 'level's. If they could not measure the power of Imagine Breaker, how can they measure this power?

Several magicians were lured in to personally see his powers in action. It was as of expected of someone who fled from Magic Cabals his entire life; it only took this teen seconds to recognize the types of magic used and adequately counteract against them. This esper geared himself toward disappearing and escaping.

Tachyon.

Bane of all magicians. The epitome of the very 'talent' magic was created to defend against. Magical societies around the world was pursuing for his head purely because of the destructive damage he would be able to achieve with his powers. And he somehow shook them all off, hiding in one place and appearing in another. And now, he was within Academy City.

The possibilities were endless.

* * *

Tachyon received many curious glances from other people as he walked across the street.

As the weather grew colder gradually less people were surprised by his clothing. Rather, they were staring at him because he was carrying a pink handbag, which contrasted bit too much from his overall clothing. Now, he wasn't wearing it over his shoulder – which would be more weirder – but he merely clutched it within his hands while traveling to his destination. Tachyon himself paid no heed – either that or he didn't even notice – the stares he gathered from the people.

He was currently headed toward the 177 Branch Office of Judgment in order to return the lost handbag, as he was asked to. It took him several hours of scavenging, digging through trash, underground sewer adventure, and other degrading tasks, but he finally achieved his goal. Adrenalin pumped through within his body after achieving the seemingly impossible task. NOTHING WILL BE WITHHELD FROM THE TACHYON ALMIGHTY. THROUGH OMNISCIENCE HE WILL BE ABLE TO FIND ANYTHING. AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA-

_Ahem._

He really needed to check his frivolity.

Anyway...

During night the visiting hours were closed at the Judgment offices. However, merely flashing his armband helped him get in – perhaps he'll keep the band after all. After some inquiries using the piece of paper he was given in order to find the object, he was promptly directed to the correct floor.

Tachyon approached the door, knocked twice, and waited for few moments before entering.

Within the office was a woman with a short black hair and glasses, and... Uiharu Kazari, was it?

"Kazari-san," Tachyon immediately approached the girl working on a computer, praying to God that he got the name right. "Surprised to see you here."

The flowerhead stared at him curiously for few moments before remembering. "Oh, Tachyon, was it?" pushing her chair back, she stood up. "Do you need any help from Judgment?"

"Ah, well, you see, Shirai-san asked for my help in finding this handbag." he held up the pink colored handbag in all its glory.

"She isn't supposed to ask other civilians to help her with Judgement duties..." the short haired woman spoke up, gaining the attention of the duo. Tachyon briefly contemplated on placing Shirai into trouble using the situation, but decided against it considering the blackmail.

"Well, she looked like she had more important stuff to do, as I believe she had her hands full in chasing after one of the unruly citizens." he shrugged. "I'm sure she had a good reason to ask for my help, only for once."

"Hmm, well, Shirai-san herself has to fill out appropriate forms upon returned lost items, and she just went out a while ago for something, so I think she'll be back soon." Kazari began to sort through some files. "You can just leave that here. Thank you for finding it."

Placing the handbag down, Tachyon made his way out from the Judgment offices, all the while contemplating upon his first examination of the suspected area. According to the information given within the reports made by the hacking communities, the Goalkeeper itself resided within this very building, a conclusion gained by the analysis of the online unique signatures.

The Goalkeeper... that girl could possibly not be the legendary computer genius who put away many proficient hackers within the city. Yet, he could not judge a book by its cover. Was that her disguise? Pretending to be a moe while the entire security systems of the Judgment was within her grasp? What was her motive?

And in order to find that out, he needed to prepare.

* * *

Tachyon had thought that Tou-man would be less than enthusiastic about going back to school. However, the overall attitude he gave off was comparable to someone who didn't know much about the school they were going to, like some sort of transfer student. Something was off if one thought about it, but Tachyon had bigger tasks to achieve.

He was currently headed back toward the Judgment offices; with the tools he prepared over the night, he would be able to extract the adequate information necessary in order to confirm his hypothesis, if nothing went wrong, of course. During the fulfillment of carefully prearranged plans, if something could go wrong, it would go wrong. It was a fundamental rule. The only way to circumvent it was to have preset alternative plans and hope for the best.

_Ommph._

Right around the corner, a gigantic Gekota suit suddenly appeared in his way. Unable to react fast enough, both of them stumbled as they collided with each other.

"Ah, my apologizes." straightening up, Tachyon scratched his head, embarrassed. "Whoa, a Gekota?"

The green suit itself took the headware off, revealing someone with a face not unlike that of a RPG game protagonist, with blue hair. Perspiration was clearly visible on his face as the direct result of wearing the heavy suit.

"Ah, the inside of the suit is too hot... oh, sorry about bumping into ya."

Hold on just a cotton picking minute here... blue hair, ear piercing, lines for eyes... he looked too suspiciously alike to the main mascot of 'Otaku' genre... maybe...

Tachyon abruptly interrupted the conversation, placing his hands forward in with solemn face. After a moment of surprise, Aogami's face became solemn in response.

It was time for...

The test.

Placing his hands forward, Aogami briefly grasped Tachyon's hand.

And then he shook it.

then he bopped it.

then he twisted it.

then he pulled it.

then he slapped it.

then he tapped it.

then they simultaneously began to wiggle their fingers. All this took place in matter of seconds. At that moment, they knew.

They both belonged to the...

"SUPER SECRET SUPER AWESOME GALGE FANCLUB!" they both yelled at the top of their lungs in unison, staring at each other in excitement. Bystanders gave them weird glances. Birds stopped chirping. Brave men wept where they stood. All in the name of awesomeness.

"South Korea, Seoul Chapter from '06, Captain Tachyon reporting for duty!" Tachyon saluted.

"Academy City Chapter from '05, Major Pierce reporting for duty!" Aogami saluted likewise. "Quickly, captain, recite the club oath!"

Taking a deep breath, Tachyon began.

"In blackest day or brightest night, no bishōjo game shall escape my sight, whether shall it include fallen female main characters but also foster sisters, foster mothers, foster daughters, twins, widows, senpais, kouhais, fellow classmates, teachers, childhood friends, ojousamas, blondes, brunettes, brown-haired, silver-haired, long-haired, medium-haired, short-haired, girls wearing bobby pins, wavy-haired, twintails, ponytails, one-sided ponytails, twin braids, ahoges, curly-haired, girls in sailor clothes, blazers, judogi, kyuudougi, kindergarten nurses, maids, policewomen, witches, shrine maidens, nuns, military women, secretaries, lolis, shotas, tsunderes, cheerleaders, stewardesses, waitresses, goth girls wearing black, goth girls wearing white, girls in China dresses, frail girls, albino girls, fantasists, girls with split personalities, queens, princesses, thigh-high socks, garterbelts, girls who cross-dress as guys, girls who wear glasses, girls who wear bandages, girls in school swimsuits, one-piece swimsuits, bikinis, V-shaped bikinis, bikinis that barely cover anything, youkai, ghosts, animal-eared girls, and beyond!

One galge to rule them all, one galge to find them,

One galge to bind them all and in the darkness bind them."

"You forgot girls who wear eyepatches in the list." Aogami shook his head in disappointment.

"Agh... knew I forgot something..." Tachyon mumbled. "Oh well, we are only required to recite 90% of the full oath, since it's so long."

"Anyway, what brings you here, Captain Tachyon?" Aogami asked.

"I have unearthed a devious plot by the group composed by outsiders in order to undermine the entire galge industry. It was labeled as of utmost priority by the club chairman. This group who call themselves... 'HashtagGamerGate'. Naturally I came as quickly as possible to alert the Academy City faction of the situation by the word of mouth, as the information I will diverge will be too sensitive for online. All other club chapters have sent envoys to alert others of the situation."

"Good work, Captain." Aogami nodded. "I shall receive this information when we are within a more private place. In the meanwhile..." Aogami pulled up the sign post he was carrying. "Any interest in Frog Warp Experiment?"

Tachyon furrowed his eyebrows. "Frog Warp Experiment? The hell is that?"

"It's an experiment where we are trying to warp Gekota merchandise into outer space!" Aogami spoke in an excited way. "If there is an alien life out there, they will be fascinated by the merchandise, and wonder what other stuff will be present on the earth!"

"...Sounds... interesting..." Tachyon mused. "I'll try to attend the... um," Tachyon took a glance at the sign post. "...Academy City Research Exhibition Assembly."

"Well, that's a part of my job done!" Aogami beamed. "...And I have more people to go. I hate this suit..." mumbling, he placed the Gekota head back on his head.

"Well, good luck with that." Tachyon gave a parting wave.

* * *

Now, with that out of the way...

Taking the necessary precaution beforehand, he completely changed his overall look in order to avoid attention. He changed the shape of his hair, borrowed a cap from Touma, bought some eye contacts that changed color, bought a simple pair of glasses, and attempted to replicate the general outfit the Judgment members wore within the office, which seemed to be Casual Formal wear. Nothing too eye popping, as he tried to be low key as possible.

He had done many freelance spy operation against the magic cabals before, but he was lacking much experience against normal offices. While this was not a new experience for him, he had his private doubts about the outcome of the operation.

However, the very building he was infiltrating had very low security, as it constituted of school attending youths attempting to do public service. This was an easy job, or so he hoped.

As usual, wearing the armband gained him an easy entrance. He made his way toward one of the rooms, pretty much unaware of his surroundings. That's how it was. Slowly poking through stuff, and hoping not to be found out.

It had seemed that he was wise in his choice of attire, as it did not contrast greatly with what other members were avoiding. He tried to explicitly avoid the floors he had visited yesterday, as someone recognizing him was the last thing he needed. Making an eye contact with any surveillance cameras was practically suicide.

Alright... he was just a regular worker, minding his business... thankfully everyone appeared to be too busy to pay him any particular attention. He was looking for something, a chance.

While passing through one of the open door offices, he spotted a young fellow rising from his seat and presumably heading toward the restroom. The bathrooms themselves had a room reserved for them on each floor. It was risky, but the longer he stayed in here, the chances of him being caught was higher.

Quickly approaching the empty desk he took out a pair of gloves, strapping them onto his hand. Sitting down on a chair was out of question, as it would leave behind heat. He took a glance at the monitor to find-

A login screen.

Well, it appeared that this person was intelligent enough to log out before heading anywhere else. A good protocol follow. Disappointed, Tachyon quickly left the scene, stowing away the gloves within his pockets.

* * *

30 minutes passed while Tachyon attempted to take any chances he could find. The longer he roamed around the place the suspicion on him would grow bigger. Currently he was walking along the hallway, attempting to be aware of his surroundings.

"That case seems to be of no importance, I think."

Tachyon swore silently. He could recognize that voice anywhere, and she was the last person he needed to meet.

Shirai Kuroko.

Not only did she know him, but she knew him well enough to see through his disguise. Walking quickly, he opened the nearest door available and shuffled inside.

Thankfully, no one was within the room. It had appeared that he discovered a janitor's room, as the place itself was clogged with cleaning equipment... and at the desk, there was a laptop.

It was presumably for personal entertainment, although it was Judgment issued by the comparison of the model to the rest of the computers within the building. And by another stroke of luck, it was not logged out, still stuck on the screen of some sort of galge game, fittingly, thinking back to what happened hours before.

Step 1 was complete. Now, based on Judgment record location, Step 2 would commence.

Tachyon took a brief sweep of the room, and it seemed that there was no security camera within the place. Strapping his gloves on, he began to carefully sweep through the network data.

Logically, all the computers within the Judgment HQ would have shared data among them, and those data could possibly contain the past records and files. Tachyon was depending on the lax security to gain his information. Expertly heading toward the main Judgment member index, he typed in the name of the person he was looking for.

* * *

Uiharu Kazari

* * *

And, within the records, her name popped up. Tachyon clicked on the name.

* * *

**ACCESS DENIED**

* * *

...Well, that was interesting. Several short tests afterward confirmed that the member files were not denied access to, and yet her profile data was. This needed further tests.

What should he do now? What would be the concrete evidence that she was, indeed, the Goalkeeper? He was rather hoping to glean some data from her profile information. Stuff like past significant activities, significant arrests... wait...

Clicking rapidly Tachyon ventured into the past arrest records. It appeared that no one considered it as sensitive data, as its security level was low. And rightfully so, as those information often appeared on the news and media and such. However, these records had significant more details than what the press revealed, including the actual name of the Judgment members involved within the arrests.

...And, by God, did he strike gold. And a lot of it. The list themselves contained all the past arrests and activities, with the ones concerning computer security being dominated by none other than-!

Uiharu Kazari.

She defeated Kuyama Kihan. She apprehended Hayashida Tsuyoshi. She caused the arrest of Kakinomoto Iwao. He knew all those people, he talked to them, he interacted with them, he discussed strategies with them.

The true monster shaking the very foundation of the hacking society. And she was nothing more than a 13 year old girl. He wanted to laugh until his guts bled. Truly, God seemed to enjoy cruel ironies.

Pulling out his USB drive, he plugged it within the laptop. He systematically began to take screenshot of the record pages – while he would have liked to directly copy the files themselves, he feared leaving too much evidence. Besides, his aim was not to prove Goalkeeper's true identity; she gave him shelter, and he had nothing against her. He merely needed the data for further studying, in order to properly analyze her achievements. It was up to the other hackers to personally find her identity themselves. Now that he proved his hypothesis, he needed to leave quickly. He ejected the USB, and began to erase the evidence of his presence.

And then, the door to the janitor office opened.

* * *

There were other battles that Tachyon engaged in outside of the fanfic, by the way.


	13. i squared - keepin' it real

4k hit!

* * *

When one did something covert or undercover, it was within their best interests not to be discovered in the act.

And when they did become discovered, they were subjected to one of the worst emotions nature had bestowed upon humans.

Time slowed down. The inside of their mouths became bitter. Agonizing seconds trickled by.

However, Tachyon was no human.

Using his extremely high level of intellect, within seconds he began to analyze every single pieces of information and objects within the room, sorting each of them, judging their helpfulness within this particular situation. Alibis began to pop into his brains at incredible speeds.

The door itself remained cold toward his hopes. It opened up quickly to reveal-!

A high schooler staring blankly at the unexpected intruder within the room.

Throwing an imaginary 20 sided die, Tachyon rolled natural 20 on bluff. It was all or nothing; if he couldn't fake his way out of this he was dead.

"Hey dude," Tachyon waved at him genially as he quickly switched the tabs to the galge game he saw before. "Good timing, I was just about to fix the situation."

"Um, hello," the teen answered, uncertain and suspicious. "Why are you in here? Why are you using that laptop?"

"Well, I spilled something back at my cubical." Tachyon naturally began to bluff every single thing. "I came to this office to ask for your help, but you weren't here... thinking that you had more important things to do, I decided to take some cleaning supplies and clean up the mess myself. But, I saw the screen to your laptop." Tachyon gestured toward the said device. "You certainly are an amateur, aren't you? You keep on making the silly mistakes within the game. Girls are not going to flock to you this way, ya know~."

"Wh-wha?" intrigued, the teen approached the laptop. "What mistakes have I been making?"

"See here." Tachyon motioned to the main girl with the mouse. "Like all beginners, you keep on selecting choices that will make the female happy! For instance, you agree to their every request, their every whim, like some sort of slave!"

"...But..." the high schooler replied with a weak voice. "That's the technique I use for every single time, and it works usually."

"Tom, Tom, Tom, you silly goose." Tachyon tutted, while patting the high schooler on the back. "That technique would work on a half-assed games, but you clearly picked a hard galge. Usual techniques don't cut it."

"...My name is not Tom."

"It isn't? Well, it is now." Tachyon straightened his shoulders, turning his full attention to the monitor. "Let's get down to business. See, this game itself was designed to portray certain types of woman... not the shy, quiet, moe-like ones, not like the tsundere types, either... but rather, this game portrays those types of woman who constantly has men flocking toward her like hyenas after a dead carcass. Do you understand now? Merely complying to her every wish will only be lowering yourself to the level of every other male after her. Even you can clearly see that you are struggling with her, am I right?"

"Hmm, I did notice that things were not going at the pace I estimated..."

"Here." Tachyon pressed a text option that was a sure way to offend the target.

"Hey! That made her angry!" Tom protested.

"Patience. Once you begin to show the signs of being an Alpha, she'll change her perspective about you." Tachyon expertly began to initiate a speed run, adroitly guiding rapidly through text options, increasing the advantage over time. "You are talking to the one who holds the title 'Galge Connoisseur'. Trust me."

"...Whoa." Tom slowly began to become entranced to the precise skill Tachyon held over the galge, as the pictures came and went.

"...And, done." Tachyon patted Tom on the back, showing a finished happy ending of the game. "Practice everyday, and after a while you'll become almost as good as me. I believe in you, Tom."

Leaving behind a stupefied high schooler, Tachyon coolly strolled out from the Janitor's Office.

* * *

It was lucky, to be honest, the way everything worked out. He had a mini heart attack the moment the door opened. Hopefully no one would bother to carefully examine the security cameras around the time he was within the building. Patting himself on the back for his impressive display of deception, he decided to treat himself to a good lunch, remembering that he had missed breakfast.

...Or, he would be able to treat himself to a good lunch, if it weren't for the fact that the restaurant he was headed toward had its front wall demolished.

Tachyon jogged toward one of the workers placing yellow tape around the area.

"What happened here?"

"Its one of those esper attacks." the worker explained. "They happen from time to time within this city. People fight amongst each other, and their abilities come into play. This time the Judgment themselves were involved."

So much damage was done within the streets, but it appeared to be a part of daily life for Academy City citizens.

"Was this a group fight? This seems bit too big of a scale for couple of espers."

"We don't know the exact details, but it seems that this was caused by a one on one fight by a two espers, one of them from Judgment."

Few espers within this city was capable of causing this much damage. Tachyon began to examine the remaining rubble resulted by the battle.

"The perpetrator in question is currently on a run, and Anti-Skill was called in. Take care of yourself, best to stay at home today." the worker gave him a wise advice.

"I see. Thanks." after the worker's attention went elsewhere, Tachyon surreptitiously picked up one of the spare rubble, and gently broke it apart into crumbs within his hands. Placing it near his mouth he licked the pieces.

_Clay..._

An earth based magic raising large golems on the basis of how God created Man... interesting...

Well, personally Tachyon was a bit glad that there finally was a magician bursting into city that did not want his head on a platter. He was human, after all. He needed rest once in a while...

While he was deep in his reverie, someone tapped him on the back.

And than, he transmigrated.

It was involuntary, completely independent from his thoughts and actions. As he began to rematerialize Tachyon scrambled into action, expecting some sort of hostile trouble that had ill will toward him.

But nothing happened.

Well, nothing happened to him, but something happened to the entire city. The sunlight remained, yet there was no shadow. He felt wind and air moments before, but now his senses only detected hollowness, as if all the pressure were snuffed out. Wide-eyed, Tachyon began to continuously stare at his surroundings, attempting to understand just what had happened.

"...Hello?"

It was a meek, mild, and shy voice. Still on alert Tachyon whipped around, jumping back in order to protect himself.

A girl was behind him. She was slightly shorter than him, and she had waist long dark black hair with spiked edges, and part of her hair was tied to the right side of her head and was left hanging down. She wore large glasses, and was dressed in a traditional school outfit. She still had her hands outstretched, and she had an expression of surprise on her face, as if she did not expect him to respond to her tap.

_...Did she just transmigrate me with a mere touch?_

"...Hi." Tachyon replied, still hyperactively analyzing every aspect around him. The people on the streets looked fairly normal, but everything else had a weird feel to them. Everything looked somehow wrong and different.

"I... didn't actually expect you to still be there." the girl whispered, with a shocked expression.

"Oh? Why not?" Tachyon replied inattentively, as he was still greatly distracted by the change in the setting. "It's not like I'll disappear the moment you touch me, unless you have esper powers related to that."

The girl did not reply, and merely began to stare at Tachyon in wonder.

"Hmm, where are we, anyway?" Tachyon took out his phone and began to flip through the screen. It looked normal, as the phone itself was still receiving Wi-Fi and mobile data. "The city itself looks weird, although I can't really explain why."

"-I think it's because you are not supposed to realize it in the first place." the girl began to explain. "No one actually managed to hold their appearance before."

"Hold my appearance?" Tachyon briefly glanced at her direction while typing on his phone, giving a confused expression. "Why, did everyone you touched change their appearance?"

"...Yes."

He stopped his activity on his device. Tachyon stared at her, wondering what exactly she meant by that statement. The appearances of the people could not be changed on just anyone's whim.

_However..._

She somehow managed to trigger his transmigration through touch, and that disturbed him to an extent. Closing his phone Tachyon walked toward one of the people on the street. The girl followed him.

"Alright." Tachyon announced as they approached an unsuspecting high schooler. "Now, according to you, this guy's appearance will change the moment I make contact with him. Like so." stretching his arm out he gently nudged the teen on the back.

Instantly, the man transformed into a tall teacher, carrying a stack of files. Tachyon's mouth fell open.

"Wh-wh-wha?" Tachyon sputtered, staring at the man in amazement. "How?" He turned toward the girl behind him, expecting some sort of explanation.

"That always happened whenever I interacted with people." A hint of sadness was evident within her voice. "It didn't matter who they were, they always changed into someone else."

"...I see." confounded, Tachyon wildly stared in all directions, attempting to make a logical conclusion.

The very setting he was in looked different, and felt different, and it appeared to have a different set of laws, which meant that he no longer was in Academy City, but somewhere else. Yet, the city looked exactly the same.

"Everything looks the same, yet they are somehow different. This is not Academy City." Tachyon reached out and felt the leaves on a tree, feeling the sensation of a soft plant within his fingers. "You are used to this, which logically means that you live here. Tell me the name of this place- wait, before you do, tell me your name." pulling his attention away from the tree Tachyon gazed at the girl.

"-My name is Kazakiri Hyouka."

"...Removing wind? Shining ice? Eh, the original meaning doesn't make much sense." Tachyon replied, attempting to gauge the meaning of her name through original characters. "My name is Tachyon. Nice to meet you. So, where are we, Kazakiri-san?"

"I call it the City of Shimmers."

"City of Shimmers? Sounds about right. Everything looks so... fake." Tachyon came to an important realization as he examined the meaning behind the words. "So that was what was bothering me for all this time. It all looks fake, like some sort of grayscale painting, except with color. Wait, that doesn't sound right..." tutting, Tachyon paced around restlessly, before coming to a stop. "So, you lived here in your entire life? Sounds like torture. Not being able to properly interact with anyone? I would have gone insane in few months, give or take."

"Well, it's not so bad, if you get used to it." approaching the nearest bench she sat down, and Tachyon followed suit, eager to rest his legs. "I try not to interact with anyone, because it causes them to disappear and turn into someone else. They all have their own unique lives, and every single time I interact with them it's like I am destroying that unique life."

"Sonder, eh?" Tachyon responded. "Well, you don't really know whether you are destroying a unique life or not. For all we know they could be popping up elsewhere."

"Even still, they all have their own unique personalities and experiences. I don't want to destroy them. And because of that reason I just wonder around the place, never trying to interact with people."

"I see. But you still did try to tap me on the back." Tachyon replied. "Why? How did you know that I would remain static?"

A short silence ensued.

"...I didn't actually expect you to remain still. Sometimes, I manage to appear for brief periods of time outside the City of Shimmers, and into the Academy City. They indeed look different from each other in some ways." Kazakiri began to play with the hems of her skirt. "But, I never really directly interacted with anyone within the Academy City. I only stood still, watching from the distance. Eventually some of them noticed me, and decided to dedicate research into finding out about who I exactly was. I tried to contact you because you were different, somehow, and I was curious of that. I never saw you in the city before."

"So that's it." Tachyon leaned back, his hands behind his head. "And right now you are materialized within the Academy City, and therefore you are able to interact with me. Must be your first time having a real, direct conversation."

"Well..." Kazakiri paused. "That's not it in this case, I think."

"Why not?"

"You noticed something odd about your surroundings. If I was the one who entered Academy City, we would both observe the city in its normal form. But we both see the unusual characteristics of the City of Shimmers. You are the one who entered the City of Shimmers-"

"-And that was the reason why you were so surprised." Tachyon was hit with this realization. "Because no one ever managed to actually enter this place before." Tachyon looked around once more, impressed with himself. "That's quite an achievement." he grinned. "So! Um... how do I get out?" his expression of self-admiration from before was suddenly replaced with one of horror. "What if I stay here forever? I have a life I need to live! I can't just be stuck here perpetually-"

Tachyon stopped the moment he saw Kazakiri's face. Her expression was covered in shadows caused by her bangs.

"...Oh."

He realized the insensitivity of his words.

She lived within this city in her entire life, unable to interact properly with anyone, forever cursed to merely observing like some sort of ghost, a phantom-like existence. She was used to it, and she silently took the heavy burden, never complaining, never having anyone else to complain to or to share her feelings with. And yet here he was, immaturely yelling out his fears while the person next to him was condemned to all this. Slight shame entered his emotions as he straightened up, and spoke once more in a calm tone.

"Well, even if I am stuck here, I'm sure it won't be all that bad." Tachyon shrugged. "I mean, if I have all the necessities of human life, which this city contains, maybe I'll get used to it. My life was a little too chaotic, on hindsight..." trailing off, Tachyon thought back to how the high schooler he interacted with turned into someone else. It seemed like appearance transformation would be a normal part of his life if he was to stay here.

Wait, a high schooler?

Something was off. As that day was the day school reopened for second semester, theoretically there should have been no students walking pleasantly along the street whatsoever. But, even now he saw students walking along, chatting, eating, enjoying their lives.

Perhaps the denizens of the City of Shimmers were inherently different from the regular Academy City citizens. Even still, he decided to make sure.

Turning to Kazakiri, Tachyon asked her this question.

"What day is it?"

Looking a bit surprised at the unexpected question, Kazakiri replied.

"Its the 31st of August."

See, that was wrong. It was September the 1st, the beginning of new school semester. Why did she say it was the 31st? Was it even really the 31st?

"...Ah."

When he transmigrated due to her contact, he must of traveled a day backwards due to his ability. Than, the overall situation became all the more complicated.

If he entered the City of Shimmers through transmigration, than theoretically he should be able to come back using transmigration as well. But, should he go back? Or should he stay back to comfort and live with this lonely girl?

...Times like this was very comparable to crossroads a protagonist of some galge games came across to.

"Kazakiri, I know you are afraid of interaction. Every single time you try to contact someone, you somehow manage to make them disappear and replace them with someone else. So consequently you no longer want to communicate with anyone, and I understand that." Tachyon stood up, continuously addressing Kazakiri. "But, if you are always afraid, how will you change anything? You tried to talk to me today, and you succeeded. I realize that this success is merely one out of thousand failures, but you miss every single shot you don't take. You never really communicated with anyone because you didn't try in the first place. No one ever succeeds without trying and taking risks." Tachyon gently grabbed her hand, and placed it near his shoulders. "So, here is what I am asking you to do. Next time you see someone that stands out, next time you rematerialize into Academy City, next time whenever, try to contact other people. Please, for your sake and mine."

"...You... you are going?"

"Yep. I think I figured out how to get out from the City. I have too much respect for you to lie and say that I want to stay within this place, but I do wish to stay with you. However, that will only stagnate the current problem, not solve it. Without me, you will be motivated to find someone else to interact with. I don't want you to be lonely, Hyouka. You have to find more and more people you can talk with, people you can live a normal human life with. And if all else fails, you can always just tap me on the shoulder again. I'll be there."

Tachyon smiled.

"Promise me that you will try to contact someone."

"...I promise."

"Good." giving a last squeeze to her hands, Tachyon began to concentrate.

And than, he transmigrated.

Rematerializing, Tachyon glanced at his surroundings.

The city was restored to its old look once more. He was back, and based on his watch, he merely had spent a measly time of 3 seconds total within the City of Shimmers.


	14. You're off the edge of the map

This is a Side Story special, taking place a bit before the fic itself.

* * *

At the Edge of the Map, Here be Dragons.

First Monday of March.

* * *

Tachyon prided himself for being good at many things. Having survived many magical blasts during his run, he was an expert in Spell Cognition. He was physically fit, using Parkour to extreme degree, leaping over wall and rooftops like a ninja. Agility and Dexterity he was best at, to the point where he was faster than the speed of light.

However, every pros had its cons.

He had a terrible sense of direction. He distinctly remembered having traversed for 5 hours out from the very town he was attempting to reach supermarket from within, simply because he arbitrary decided to use a shortcut.

Because of that reason, he had very little idea where he even was at this point.

How did he even end up in here?

Obsidian floors, dark stone walls, ground clean at the center, other parts covered with stalagmites; high ceilings covered with stalactites. Looking around befuddled, Tachyon carefully stepped around, flashing his torch at various places.

There, at further up, the center, resided a gigantic black dragon.

The only explanation Tachyon could possibly come up for this impossible situation with was that he somehow reached the end of the world. Within the world of magic mythology and creativity was everything. In ancient times map authors had the impression that the earth was flat, and they marked the uncharted territories – namely, at the very same point their map started with – with a picture of a dragon, and a warning to those who attempted to reach there.

Using that ideology one could create a set of magic where they pretended that the earth was indeed flat. What if people held the conception of earth being round due to the fact that once they reached the edge, they reached the point they started from? What if the very edge they sought was out from their reach for good reasons? And how the heck did he even reach the edge of the lands? He prided himself on achieving impossible tasks, but this was flat out ridiculous.

Obvious problems casted aside, Tachyon focused upon the dragon. To his eyes, it looked absolutely beautiful. Smooth, jet black fabric covered the majestic beast. Shining bronze scales covered its back, curving down all the way to its twitching tail. Steel claws gleamed dangerously against the unnatural atmosphere of light that covered the entire lair. Its large ears slightly quivered this way and that, perhaps to be aware of any intruders. It was bigger than four eighteen wheelers, and its snores rang out loud through the silent cave.

If it weren't for obvious reasons Tachyon would have loved to have kept it as a pet. He gazed at the creature, stupefied at its gorgeousness. Normal mortals would have fallen prey to the natural charm and its mere presence, but Tachyon rather fixated his attention on its appearance.

(If past chapters did not give enough hints, Tachyon had weird preference for affableness.)

And than, behind the dragon, treasures of all kinds shone magnificently, littered with coins, chests, barrels, blades, and etc. Bones and skulls were scattered here and there in an unsettling manner.

Noticing an intruder within its home, the eyelids of the dragon twitched, and then slowly opened. Warm glow of ember shone from the slits of its eyes, soon replaced by an intense smolder of a furnace. Small streams of smoke began to steadily arose from its mouth and nostrils. The orange irises focused on the lone interloper, who wielded a torch and wore a leather hat that contrasted bit too much from his appearance.

And than, suddenly, the beast was right in front of him. Teleportation did not describe it well - it only relied on its pure speed. Its large face leered intimidatingly at him.

"You should not have come here, human." the beast spoke slowly, barely moving its mouth. "Why do you cross through my domain?"

Tachyon at first struggled for speech in front of the unnerving creature, but spoke nonetheless. "I was on my way to the kitchen for a snack, and then I was lost."

Look of doubt permeated from the dragon's visage. "You ended up in the unexplored dark lands on your way to the kitchen?"

"I am not a clever man," Tachyon smoothly responded.

Induced at his quip, the dragon immediately unleashed a stream of green fire from its throat. The color itself resembled the shade of the green one often saw at the cover of the Monster Energy Drinks. Tachyon subconsciously triggered emergency temporal shift in response, barely managing to avoid the deadly strike. The transmigration itself should have – and did before – avoid any harm that would have been inflicted onto Tachyon. Even still, slight smolders of green flames danced upon his navy blue jacket. Tachyon hurriedly patted away the dangerous fire from his clothing.

It was very apparent that the dragon itself was not even trying.

"Using tricks will only get you so far." the dragon spoke. "Come now, amuse me. I have been asleep for eons."

"Sure." Tachyon readily responded. "But before I do so, may I have the privilege to know the name of my adversary?"

"The term 'adversary' does not fit well into the aggression between an insect and a giant. But you may call me Beresad."

"Beresad... prepare yourself!" from behind his cover – one of the hundreds of stalagmites upon the floor – Tachyon launched his attack. Numerous elementary particles flew from his body toward the dragon, each streams circling around chaotically. Blue beams of light danced around like heat seeking missiles. The beast flapped its almighty wings, shielding itself from the attack that truthfully would have done very little damage even to its unprotected flesh. It thrashed around as if it was bothered by an army of fleas, as tears flowed from its eyes, not from pain but from laughter.

"You'll have to do better than that!" green flames devoured the majority of the lasers. "What do you possibly expect to do with this weak attack?" the dragon asked.

But Tachyon was gone.

Attempting to sniff him out from his hiding place, the Dragon moved around, relying on it's sense of smell and sound. However Tachyon was not even within the present vicinity.

"Over here!"

The dragon whipped around only to meet a large arrow head on. The projectile itself bounced harmlessly off of its face, and absolutely no damage was done to the beast. It only served to further annoy it, and what it saw next angered it more.

Tachyon was standing right on the gigantic hoard of treasures, and he was currently wielding a large bow. He waved at the dragon in a friendly manner.

"DO. NOT. TOUCH. MY. RICHES!"

Another green stream of fire bellowed from its mouth. Tachyon quickly grabbed the platinum blue shield he had retrieved before and squatted down before it. Hot air permeated throughout the area as the valuables burned in green fire. After the blast Tachyon slowly stood up, realizing that the spot he was standing upon was the only place protected from the flames. All the surrounding area was blazing, including his shield, due to the flames tenaciously holding on. Yet no visible damage was being done to the objects. It seemed as though the dragon adjusted its firepower in order to not damage its goods.

"Clever, I'll admit, standing amidst by belongings in order to not be harmed. But..."

The dragon flew toward him with great speed, its claws gleaming dangerously.

"That changes once I come up close!"

Grabbing a random sword nearby Tachyon swung. The blade clashed against the numerous teeth of the dragon, each one of them stronger than steel. Bright sparks flew from friction. Tachyon was thrown back, his blade slipped from his fingers, and his back crashed against the numerous gold coins on the floor. Leaping up again, Tachyon grabbed a pike next to him and readied himself for the next crash.

It came sooner than he expected. The dragon wasted no time leaping up once more in order to collide against him again. Tachyon was again launched through the air, but this time he kept his grip tight on the polearm. He saw himself appearing right behind the beast, and understood his own intentions.

And then, he transmigrated directly behind the dragon, his weapon pointed directly toward the dragon's back. The tip crashed against the skin, and, it should have penetrated it.

But it didn't.

The blade twisted itself against the flesh of the dragon. Tachyon bounced off of the beast, and the it's tail swung in a perfect rhythm against him, knocking him further back toward the deep recess of the dungeon. All this time the dragon stood still, deep chuckle emanating from its throat.

"It will take more than that to penetrate my flesh, mortal."

_What is up with its thick skin?_

Apparently nothing that was available to him would be able to pierce through the dragon's scales. Even so, he needed to try every sort of possibility before succumbing to the dragon's flames. Standing up despite his pain, he hurriedly ducked down in order to avoid the next strike from the dragon's tail. In order to initiate his Plan B, he needed to be right on top of the it. If he were to use transmigration to achieve that directly, there was the limitation of needing to spend precious minutes he did not have in order to properly calculate the necessary coordinates. His other option was to be within the quick transmigration range, which was several meters. A huge distance in front of the dragon.

And the beast itself was not about to give him the chance to come close.

Tails and claws swung dangerously around the place as Tachyon desperately dashed. True to its metaphor, it resembled a giant swatting a fly in midair.

Getting close within the range was a difficult task. Tachyon was quickly caught up within the rapid succession of attacks, and was soon flung into the air by the tail strike, this time his left leg being ripped open due to the bronze scales. Tachyon quickly transmigrated himself in order to change his trajectory. Tachyon accelerated toward the dragon, and once he was within the necessary range, transmigrated once more right on top of the beast. Forming claws using tachyon particles he clung tightly onto the skin of the dragon as it attempted to shake him off. Seeing that it was ineffective, the beast clawed its own skin, ignoring the scratches it was creating along with it, in an attempt to shred Tachyon into pieces. However he tightly held on, transmigrating this way and that in order to avoid being pierced, relying upon the appearances of his future selves in order to predict the attack. The dragon began to bleed from its own scratching, and Tachyon was soon soaked within dragon blood.

He began to pant as he realized his need to carefully watch the energy used up by his transmigration.

Seeing that it would take a long time to get him off of its skin using claws and tail, the dragon flung himself toward the pile of gold, in an attempt to cover its entire body with metal in order to shake off the intruder. Tachyon quickly jumped off in order to avoid being buried within the coins and sharp weapons.

Seeing his arm covered with blood, Tachyon lightly licked it. Supposedly dragon's blood had special abilities, so he was willing to try that out.

_Mm, metallicky._

"You have amused me greatly, human. Now, allow me to finish you off." Dragon came up and close toward him as it prepared another blast. Tachyon attempted to flee, but continued pain within his leg slowed his progress. At this rate he would be covered with fire.

But the blast did not come. Tachyon observed the dragon suddenly struggling against an invisible force, as if an unseen chain was holding it back. Great anger was being expressed on its face.

"Now, now, Beresad. I told you to stay out of trouble."

A lone figure appeared from the cave opening. He was covered within a dark shroud, and his hood obscured his face, with only his long ears pointing out. He was holding a large emblem decorated with gold within his left hand.

"Sorry about that." the figure said. "My creature gets in all sorts of trouble with other strangers. I do hope you can forgive his behavior."

"Ah, well, um..." Tachyon replied, bit taken aback with this sudden development. "It's fine, really."

"Glad to hear that." the man smiled.

"So, where am I?" Tachyon scratched his head. "I did come by this place in accident. I had always thought dragons were not real."

"You are at my home." the man stretched out his hands toward the entire cavern. "This is my preferred place of living; I was a bit bored with traditional houses. Interior decorators these days are really so unreasonable, unable to achieve a simple request of 'make it look like it came right out from the Lord of the Rings'. Mighty men of olden days lived in castles and towers, so I decided to emulate their style. My personal belongings is located after the long chain of gold treasures. The Dragon himself is just a simple touch, one of the creations from the experiments of the magical scientists. Fancy, is it not?"

"Well, I am impressed with all this. And I definitely wouldn't mind helping myself to one of those precious weapons on the pile over there."

"I'm glad that you see it as a perfect home. Ah, how rude of me. My name is Vorinor."

"Tachyon. Nice to meet you."

"Same. This place theoretically shouldn't have any regular visitors, and that's simply just to avoid annoying solicitors. However proficient magicians do manage to wonder within this place from time to time. And, consequently, they were silenced."

"...Silenced?"

"Yes. I really do need to destroy anyone that somehow is able to enter within this lair. The information about this place leaking outside would be rather troublesome, you see. So I need you to stay still while I destroy you. I hope you understand." from out of nowhere he drew up a long sword, and he swung it directly at Tachyon. A large wave of energy was shot toward him. Tachyon punched at the attack in response.

"타키온 방패!"

A large wall of blue light began to circulate from his fist as it resisted the energy attack.

"I did tell you to stay still..." the man grumbled in an annoyed voice, as if he actually expected Tachyon to do what he was told. He flailed his sword around for a second attack.

"타키온 사베르!"

Tachyon conjured his sabre and launched his own assault toward his new opponent. The man readied his sword in response, expertly parrying Tachyon's attacks. Furiously striking with all his might, Tachyon began to chant.

"I am the Soul of my Sword

Particle is my Body and Tachyon is my Blood.

I have created over a Thousand Blades,

Unknown to Comedy,

Nor known to Tragedy.

Have withstood Pain to create many Weapons

Yet those Hands will never rub Anything.

So, as I Pray-

Unlimited Sabre Works!" Tachyon roared.

"Excellent reference, but I doubt it will help you achieve victory over me." the man easily replied as their blades clashed. While fighting with swords the hooded being managed to counter every single tachyon bullets shot toward his direction with his blade, displaying an excellent dexterity.

One thing that caught Tachyon's attention was that the man held on to the emblem within his left hand even while fighting. What function that object served, Tachyon was yet to find out.

"Give up." the man said. "I have defeated many proficient magicians such as you. My experience clearly exceeds yours. There is no way you can win."

"Ah, well, that's the problem, isn't it?" Tachyon replied. "I am not a magician. If you were as experienced as you said you were, you would have noticed the lack of mana inputted from my body. Do you see any runes carved around this place?"

He was right. There was a suspicious lack of magically activity from him. The man frowned in response, carefully re-analyzing his opponent.

"Not a magician, hmm? Then, don't tell me..."

"Precisely." Tachyon grinned.

"One of the very beings that the occult was formed to counter against?" the hooded figure countered a strike from Tachyon while he continued. "An ability user!"

"Well, the name varies. We didn't exactly assign ourselves a specific description. But you are right, nonetheless."

"Even so, I shouldn't have too much difficulty defeating you. You don't seem to possess a particularly powerful ability." pointing his sword toward Tachyon, the hooded being blasted out many powerful waves of energy.

"Aghk...!?"

The tachyon sabre shattered after receiving three hits from the wave. The fourth blast severely burned his arm, knocking him a fair distance backward on his back. In an instant the man was right in front of him, his sword aimed at his chest.

"Farewell, trespasser." the man said. "You have fought well, compared to other magicians."

"Yeah, well, that's the thing." Tachyon replied. "No matter how much magicians you fought, statistically I am willing to bet that I fought more."

The emblem held within the man's left hand was suddenly penetrated right in the middle. An arrow stuck out from the middle of the magical artifact.

"What?" The man glanced toward the direction of the attack. Inexplicably Tachyon stood their, wielding the large bow from before. "A doppelganger?"

"Not really. You seem to hold on to that object constantly for some reason. What would happen now that it was pierced?"

A large shadow suddenly loomed over them. The man fearfully turned around to see the terrifying gaze of the dragon directed toward him.

"You..." the dragon rumbled in a deep voice. Before the man even had a chance to protest, the dragon's long tail swooped out, knocking him right on his temple. The man fell to the ground, knocked out cold.

"...Whoa, wait." Tachyon hurriedly raised his arms in objection. "Before you kill me-"

"You have done me a great favor, mortal." the dragon cut right over his stammer. "That detestable being held me captive with that artifact for quite some time. You did well in destroying it. In return, I will let you go free with your life. Hurry up, as I still have to exact more revenge onto this pitiful creature." the dragon eyed the man on the floor.

"Um, I have no idea how to get out from here..." Tachyon replied.

"Not my problem. Get out before I change my mind about eating you." the dragon spoke, indifferent to his concerns.

Tachyon sighed, trudging up from the floor. He still needed to transmigrate in order to retrieve the bow and to destroy the artifact, all the while with an injured leg and arm. This was going to be tough...


	15. Tīvragāmī

It was the crack of dawn.

Like any other normal human being, Tachyon was deep in slumber within his comfortable futon. Today was his lucky day, as he usually slept on the hard floor most of the time. But for some reason the other two occupants of the dorm room were strangely absent.

_VVVVWWWWOOOOOOOOORRRRPPP!_

"Umf..."

Right now one thing he wanted more than anything was more time to sleep. He wished to savor the comfort of the bed when he had the chance; but the phone continued to ring without mercy, without hesitation. Stretching his hands he groped around the hard, cold floor for his phone. Flipping his device open, Tachyon leaned in toward the speaker.

"Hello?" Tachyon yawned.

"Hey, Tachyon." It was Touma. "I'm in ramen shop right now- I need your help."

"I see." Tachyon paused for a bit, letting the grogginess pass. "Is it urgent?"

"Well, it kinda involves the fate of the entire world."

"So not that urgent than. Well, continue anyway."

"Where should I start... well, yesterday, I came across a wind turbine with some sort of magical symbols upon it, and when I destroyed it with my right hand, I triggered a trap set up by Stiyl. Do you know Stiyl Magnus?"

"...Let's see, that red haired guy from 0th Parish? Come to think of it, I thought I saw Index hanging around with him a year ago."

"Yeah, that's him. Well, he set up that spell on the wind turbine in order to trap a group of magicians called Gate of the Gods Come from the Heavens. They were planning to use Agni's Festival Fire to basically scorch the Academy City. Have you ever heard of that cabal?"

"That Hindu Cabal? I sabotaged one of their operations three or four years ago. They made fun of my jacket. No one makes fun of my jacket."

"...I see. So today after school I decided to track down the organization myself, since I didn't exactly trust Stiyl to actually ask me for help. Index told me where the center of the entire spell was, and as soon as we reached the building, it exploded for some reason. But we still decided to head inside anyway."

"So you headed inside a burning building with Index."

"...Yes?"

"While it was burning."

"Yes."

"With all the smoke and ashes and stuff."

"Yes."

"...Carry on."

"Well, long story short, we found a room inside that was somehow unaffected by the fire, but the moment I entered the protection set up around the room was broken and the chamber itself began to burn also. The room had very little furniture in it, only few chairs, one table, and a safe. After destroying the center of the spell itself, I decided to push the safe out of the window in order to see what was inside. Carrying it with me was a bit unrealistic, as it was heavy and because of fire and whatnot."

"Okay, so this safe, how big was it?"

"Um, about the size of a washing machine?"

"So you basically dragged something that big out to the window while fire was all around you."

"...Yes?"

"...Please, continue. I'm fascinated."

"Well, we got out of the building, and managed to retrieve the contents of the safe. But the Agni's Festival Fire was still ongoing, the most likely reason being that they had backup centers just in case. Because we were afraid that the magicians would prematurely activate the Festival Fire due to their main center being destroyed, we hurriedly went to the direction of the explosion that occurred after the burning of the building after analyzing the files in the safe. And than we were targeted by series of fire attacks, and when we tracked down the source, we found a girl."

"Isn't that fact given when you are around?"

"Um, she seems like a middle schooler with weird clothing which she claims to be Japanese. Her name is Sozty Exica. Anyway, us and Stiyl began to chase her down to a subway tunnel, and turns out that since she uses wind to target people using Shiva based communication method, she had poor accuracy on the streets where there were more wind interference. But within straight, narrow tunnels she had the advantage. But even so we managed to subdue her and than decided to restrain her at my apartment-"

"Ah, yes, brilliant plan, openly announcing your place of solitude for the entire underworld of darkness to see. We'll be bombarded by magical attacks sooner or later. But the girl that is currently headed toward here right now might make it all up for it." Tachyon interrupted. "Tell me, how does she look like? Do I need to prepare the place for our guest?"

"-Well, my plan didn't exactly work out. One of the members of her cabal decided to silence her with magical attack, but she managed to survive by being brought to a hospital. We still needed to get out from the hospital before the Anti Skill arrived, since she was injured in what they saw as a terrorist attack. So we went outside of the hospital using the window."

"How high were you?"

"Um, the room we were in was about three stories high."

"I would be surprised, but this is our life on daily basis."

"While we were walking around the city trying not to attract attention, Stiyl contacted us, informing that the Magic Cabal itself was destroyed from the inside. After some discussion we reached to the conclusion that Ureapaddy, her sister was the one who destroyed all the members of the cabal. The weapon we think she uses is Brahma Astra."

"Whoa, hold on, the Brahma Astra? I thought the project to make that Astra a reality resulted in a failure. The weapon itself rivals that of Gungnir."

"Well, her sister was apparently powerful enough the kill the powerful members of the Cabal. One of the requirements to use the Brahma Astra is having three shooting stars within the sky. With that weapon-"

"I've seen what it can do." Tachyon interrupted him. "I hung around their experimental sites for quite a bit, and the results were not pretty."

"So, we thought about that, and asked this question: what would constitute a shooting star? Would space debris flying into the atmosphere count?"

"Possibly." Tachyon said. "The requirements for fulfilling magical conditions makes you think outside of the box quite a bit."

"We think that Ureapaddy would have some sort of plan at the rocket launch facility in order to use her Brahma. Academy City has only one, which is District 23. We decided to head toward there, but here is the thing: one of the components for the rocket, the capsule for the fuel, is at District 10. And since the capsule itself is quite large, the transportation would take the shortest route. We headed toward the possible roads and waited for her. After we caught her, long story short, she pierced the tank filled with that fuel with her Astra. Did I mention that the fuel itself was highly flammable and toxic?"

"Ah. I take it that you survived safely?"

"Well, Index somehow helped Stiyl blow it all up without any negative consequences."

"Hmm, hold on." Tachyon sat up. "Do you remember the exact instructions Index gave to that magician?"

"Um, something about adding purification and some instructions about initials and looping."

"Neutralizing the harmful effects using purification." Tachyon realized. "Genius. Well, do go on."

"We wondered why Ureapaddy abandoned the rocket fuel so readily, and realized that she used the Venus Probe Contest to sabotage other rockets from parts of the world before heading to Academy City. According to Sozty every single country the cabal took to reach Academy City was involved within the contest."

"Well, snap. Can't do much about that." Tachyon responded in a languid voice. "So our only option is to destroy her Astra."

"Yeah. The rocket she was trying to manipulate was scheduled to be launched at 9 PM three days from now, so we speculated that other rockets she sabotaged were also planned to launch at that time. As we weren't able to find her after an extensive search, we decided to regroup and think up a plan to destroy her Astra. We are currently at 24 hour ramen shop in order to get some sleep."

"Why not at our home?"

"The Anti-Skill would be keeping an eye at my dorms after our disappearance from the hospital. So Tachyon, I need you to go out there and see if you can track down Ureapaddy."

Touma described the physical aspects of the magician in question.

"Oh, and Stiyl is planning to leave multiple signs only magicians can recognize around the city, so don't fall for them. Also, you have to leave our dorm discreetly."

"Got it." Tachyon replied, standing up and taking care not to be visible from windows. "I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Touma snapped his phone shut.

"Who were you talking to?" Sozty looked over, curious. Her head was still lying down upon the sticky table.

"Someone who can help us." he replied.

* * *

Transmigrating further than several meters from the original spot took extensive time of concentration for proper preparation. The reason for this was that he needed to calculate the precise speed and trajectory of each and every particle he was going to transform into, taking multiple factors that affected the travel into account. If he were to transmigrate into a wall, the results would not be pretty.

But now he was safely outside, at any rate.

Now, where to begin? Tracking down a magician that did not wish to be discovered was a hard task. Most likely they would wipe away any traces of magical residue they would leave behind.

Perhaps he could observe the entire city through the use of security cameras, but first he needed to find the adequately private area to do so. The dorm he just transmigrated from was a poor choice, as attempting to infiltrate security systems within a place where Anti Skill had their eyes on was a bad idea. And, most likely Ureapaddy would have prior intel of surrounding security cameras from her cabal and would take actions necessary to hide within the blind spots.

However, that conclusion opened up new options. Since there were fewer places without cameras compared to areas with actual surveillance, all he needed to do was to check out the blind areas in order to track her down. Still that method was being based off of a hypothetical assumption, but at least he was looking. And that was his job.

Based on the spots of the city he saw through the cameras during his stay at the hospital, he compared them to the actual map of the city, and extrapolated the blind areas through contrast. Going into a sprint he hurried toward the nearest back alley. While running Tachyon contemplated further into the whereabouts of the magician he was after.

Most likely she would avoid the District 23 and 10, as they were associated with her previous plans. However, what if she relied on that logic to actually stay within one of those two districts? Based on the previous conclusion no one would think of actually looking into those two places. But than again what if she was somewhere completely different?

All this speculative hypothesizing was doing a number to his head. Might as well focus on the task in front of him.

So far the analysis of the blind spots revealed nothing that matched the characteristics given to him. And upon further reflection he realized the possibility of her disguising her looks... by using the ideology of all Hindu deities being an aspect of Brahman, and the ideology of some deities having different forms, one could possibly disguise their physical aspects.

Dang, where was he supposed to look? He could have possibly passed her by at some point and he wouldn't have noticed!

* * *

Most other blind spots he checked throughout the city was desolate (which was a given, as no cameras were installed there precisely because of the fact that few people lingered around there in the first place), and had no remarkable qualities about them.

Except for the one he just came across.

It was a car scrapyard, surrounded by thick, metal walls. Normally he would have passed right by this place, being in too much of a hurry to give any particular attention to the background.

But a part of the wall stood out like a sore thumb.

One of the sections of the metal barrier itself was torn from the inside out, leaving a large, gaping hole. The inside was also quite chaotic; a gigantic crater covered the area. Rubble composed of old car parts were littered all around the place, as if a tornado had dropped by. Something big had happened here.

"Too bad I can't directly observe what happened – oh wait, I can." Tachyon gave a grin as he prepared for transmigration. "Checking every two hours beforehand should be enough. I should find a hiding spot first, or I would be detected."

Closing his eyes, he concentrated deeply.

* * *

Finally, after four consecutive transmigration did he finally found the scrapyard occupied by a group of people. And they seemed to be the magic cabal he was looking for. Wiping off the perspiration on his face Tachyon focused on the trail of conversation originating from within the meeting. Hopefully he wouldn't be found in the midst of their conversation. If any of them decided to suddenly check upon the possible hiding spots behind the derelict vehicles, he was in deep trouble.

"...of the center to Agni's Festival Fire that we transferred here, we can turn this city into a sea of flames with our Anglican pursuer inside."

About twenty people were gathered into the scrapyard. They all seemed to be arguing about their next course of action.

"But Sozty interfered with Agni's Festival Fire to buy this time. It is possible the network has been damaged."

"If we take a passive stance here, this valuable time will go to waste."

"But making any major moves without any guarantee of success could lead to a fatal failure."

The all too familiar feeling of unsure and unease before an execution of a large plan was evident within their conversation. Was this the catalyst that led to the destruction of this place?

And then, a woman in midst of their group sighed. All other members of the cabal seemed to turn their attention toward her. And, she matched the description Touma gave him.

Ureapaddy Exica.

According to Touma she possessed the power of Brahma, the ruler of the universe.

"Should we continue on or fall back? What do you say?" One of the members asked her.

"Good question." A thin smile appeared on her lips before she continued. "How about this?"

Her actions were devastatingly simple.

"Gandiva."

Bluish-white arrows appeared from thin air, and it was fired directly at the group of people surrounding her.

Metal was comparable to butter in the face of such destruction. The sound of multiple bodies being slammed together was heard. Screams of agony echoed throughout the scrapyard. It seemed that her actions were too quick for them to react against. The ground itself was bombarded by the point blank annihilation. Tires and pieces of car scraps were forcefully pulled around, further damaging the victims.

The very vehicle Tachyon was hidden behind was ripped into pieces. Out of instinct he transmigrated outside the scrapyard, hoping that its thick metal walls would protect him from resulting damage. Now he had no way of knowing what was going on within the inside.

Even with all that destruction, she still wasn't done.

"Trishula." a faint whisper was heard in the middle of all the hectic commotion.

That was the name of the infamous trident of Hindu mythology. The emblem of the god Shiva, its three prongs symbolizing each aspect of the famous god: creation, preservation, and destruction. He could only leave it to his imagination the destructive effects the weapon itself caused.

The walls surrounding the scrapyard shook from the wreaked havoc. One body was suddenly launched toward the air, and slammed toward the ground outside of the scrapyard. The man screamed at impact, but miraculously he rose up from the ground and began to haphazardly limp toward safety.

And than, the walls themselves exploded from within.

Now, Tachyon knew that was going to occur sooner or later, as he actually observed the resulting hole. He made sure beforehand that he was as far away from the blast radius as he possibly was able to while also attempting to glean some information by listening.

Sadly, he was too naive. He wasn't far away enough.

Shards of steel streaked by over his body in dangerous trajectories. If he was even slightly located to the left it would have possibly ripped his arm off. Or his head.

"Holy $#!&..." Tachyon muttered.

Out from the hot, glowing hole, stalked Ureapaddy, dragging several unfortunate members of the cabal with her hands, leisurely chasing after her next victim like a cat. Fortunately he was within shadows, keeping himself inconspicuous.

After staying still and quiet for few minutes after she walked out, Tachyon carefully stepped into the opening created by her attack. Unique smell formed from the odors of smoke, fire, cauterized wounds, and blood reached his nostrils. The temperature within the scrapyard jumped ten degrees higher compared to the outside. Smoked bodies of the fallen members of the cabal remained within the area. Checking their pulses would have been useless; their life was completely and utterly squeezed from their bodies.

Merciless.

Meticulous.

Absolutely lacking in elegance or beauty.

And none of the powers he saw during all this was related to Brahma in any way. This was all still Shiva Astras. He did not even have the chance to observe the Brahma Astra.

"Quite a tough enemy we have here..." Tachyon muttered in a quiet voice.

"Yes, it does seem so, does it not?" a new voice, originating from behind him, replied.


End file.
